Richard E. Grant was sitting with his daughter Olivia in a restaurant in Notting Hill Gate watching the live feed of this year’s Oscar nominations with earpieces in. They both burst into tears when his name was included in the Best Supporting Actor shortlist. After nearly four decades in the business, the 61-year-old British actor had finally won awards recognition with Academy, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe nominations for his acclaimed performance as the ‘decaying dandy’ Jack Hock in CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?

Richard, a teetotaller, returns to the same sozzled theatrical brilliance of his debut, when he played the perpetually inebriated title character in the cult film WITHNAIL AND I. Jack Hock is a drunken, gay grifter who was the real life partner-in-crime of down and out celebrity biographer Lee Israel, (Melissa McCarthy) who turned to literary forgery to make ends meet. Variety magazine’s Peter Debruge wrote about Richard’s character, “Jack can hardly pass a fire hydrant without asking for its phone number.” The real Jack Hock died of AIDS at the age of 47 in 1994.

It would be quicker to list the critic and festival Supporting Actor awards that Richard hasn’t won this year. And he has been part of ensemble casts that have won awards in the past, most notably his role as George in GOSFORD PARK, which won the SAG award in 2001, among others. Richard will be seen in STAR WARS EPISODE IX but we don’t know his character as yet land he’s been sworn to secrecy.

Richard attended the Gala Screening of CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? at the Empire Cinema in Leicester Square during last October’s BFI Film Festival. He managed to quickly sign for most of the large crowd that gathered with his iconic ‘reg’ initials graph, including one on my sketch.