Hugh Grant ‘didn’t really register’ Donald Trump in ‘Two Weeks Notice’ cameo
A brief encounter with someone who goes on to be President of the United States would be a defining moment in most people’s lives, but most people aren’t Hugh Grant. The actor crossed paths with Donald Trump on the set of the 2002 romantic comedy Two Weeks Notice, but Grant only vaguely remembers it.
“He played a bit part as himself in a romantic comedy I did with Sandra Bullock, but the thing is, I don’t really remember him that well,” Grant said on The Graham Norton Show earlier this month. “The night he came, I had a bet with Sandy that I could make the chairman of Warner Bros. cry by 9 p.m., and I was completely focused on that. It was quite a big bet. She didn’t believe I could do it, but I did it!”
In Grant’s defense, not many other people remember Trump popping up in Two Weeks Notice, either (especially compared to his frequently-meme’d cameo in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York). Directed by Marc Lawrence (who also worked with Bullock on the Miss Congeniality films and with Grant on Music and Lyrics) and set in Trump’s hometown of New York City, Two Weeks Notice is an odd-couple pairing between a liberal lawyer (Bullock) and a billionaire developer (Grant).
Trump’s cameo makes sense, since Grant’s character feels inspired by him, but he wasn’t even the only New York icon to show up — former New York Mets star Mike Piazza and musician Norah Jones also make appearances.
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Grant’s lack of impression from Trump is even more noticeable compared to how vividly he recalls his strategy for getting the Warner Bros. studio executive to cry. As he explained to Norton, Grant knew the man got emotional about his children, his father, and Castle Rock Pictures, so “I mentioned them over and over. Finally by about 8:30 he was in floods of tears.”
Grant continued, “so I’m afraid Donald Trump didn’t really register…all I remember is that a day or two afterwards, I got a call that ‘you’ve been made a member of Trump National New York.’ Which was a golf club. I was like oh, alright then. But I don’t really remember him greatly as a person.”
“I’m not sure he does,” interjected Sebastian Stan, who was also present in Graham Norton’s trademark assembly of multiple celebrity guests.
Stan, of course, portrays Trump in the new biopic The Apprentice, which arrives in theaters this month just as its subject is in the midst of his third consecutive presidential campaign. Stan recently told Entertainment Weekly about his extensive preparation for the role.
“Jeremy [Strong] and I had to be extremely well-read in terms of not just our characters but also the time period and what was happening in New York at the time: who was the mayor, who was playing for the New York Mets, what were the charities, tax breaks, and connections,” Stan tells EW.
Watch Grant’s comments on The Graham Norton Show above.