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Onscreen and off, Grant's shtick is to stammer; words are land mines around which he stumbles nonchalantly. Even with a script, Grant has a rougher time getting through a sentence unharmed than anyone since Jimmy Stewart. And so, in his weeklong mass-media confession, it took a while for him to become sure of himself--sure, that is, of the Hugh Grant he was playing for the largest audience ever to see him (the night he appeared, the Tonight Show won its highest ratings since Leno's first month as permanent host).
In his Tonight appearance on Monday, Grant's obvious nervousness ("I've never been one to, you know, blow my own trumpet") made the audience titter. But as his magical misery tour moved through the week, he gradually learned how to perform in this difficult role: part humiliation, part wry soldiering on. With King, he called his grandmother in as a character witness, quoting her as saying, "What I tell people, darling, is that you had a few drinks with the boys and then got a bit fresh with the girls--and leave it at that."
As Grant also told King, "I would rather be famous than notorious." These days you can't have one without the other. But an actor so ingratiating, and who has suffered so publicly, is ripe for absolution. The odds are that moviegoers will contribute to the Hugh Grant Defense Fund one movie ticket at a time. Their attitude may be that of the prostitute who will always be linked with him: to err is Hugh, man; to forgive, Divine.