Hugh Grant jokes ‘I’m half-Indian’, says dad was born here

A still from La Nuit Bengali. Pic/X@Jabalisamhita

During a visit to Delhi, British star Hugh Grant on Saturday said his father was born in an obscure northern town in the Indian subcontinent, which may now be in Pakistan, and joked that this makes him "half Indian". The British star, known for romance classics such as "Four Weddings and a Funeral", "Notting Hill" and "Love Actually".

"My father was a soldier. In fact, he was born in India. I had to find his birth certificate, and it was really tough. It was some obscure town in the north of India. It may well be Pakistan now," Grant, 65, said. "He was born in either India or Pakistan. I guess that makes me half Indian, really," he added.

Hugh Grant. Pic/X@hughgrantupdate

Grant also recalled his first visit to India in 1988 when he came to shoot for "La Nuit Bengali" (The Bengali Night) in Kolkata, then Calcutta. "I shot a very arty film in 1988 in Kolkata and it never really had much of a release... but I thoroughly enjoyed being in Kolkata, although people said, ‘Hugh, it is going to be a cultural shock for you.' and it was but I ended up loving it," he said.

"I for some reason got swept up into Kolkata high society, went to cocktail parties and polo. I didn't know that life still existed anywhere. But it existed then in Kolkata. The Tollygunge Club and I went there to parties and people like Moon Moon Sen, I had a lovely time there."

Adapted from the semi-autobiographical novel by Mircea Eliade, "La Nuit Bengali" was set in 1930s Calcutta. Starring Grant and Supriya Pathak in the lead roles, the film follows a young European engineer who becomes entangled in a forbidden romance with the daughter of the traditional Bengali family hosting him. The movie also starred cinema icons Shabana Azmi and the late Soumitra Chatterjee in pivotal roles.

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