Connie Chung says Hugh Grant isn't 'very friendly' and refused to recognize her on 'The Undoing' sets
American journalist Constance Yu-Hwa Chung, better known as Connie Chung, a former anchor, and reporter TV news networks NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC, recently said that actor Hugh Grant was "not very friendly". Appearing on Andrew Goldman’s ‘The Originals’ podcast for Los Angeles Magazine on Thursday, December 17, the 74-year-old network news legend, as per the official synopsis brought “a Gatorade cooler full of tea to spill about Donald Trump, Hugh Grant, David Letterman, Dan Rather, not to mention Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer, who teamed up for a Jeff Gillooly-on-Nancy Kerrigan style welcome to ABC News. Plus: why she wanted to murder hubby Maury Povich during Covid.”
While talking about her scene in ‘The Undoing’, opposite Hugh Grant, in which she portrays a journalist interviewing Grant's character about being investigated for murder, she said she gave Grant some tips. "When Hugh Grant sat down, he was looking all rumpled," she said. "He's one of those British rumpled fellows. And his tie was askew, and I am very OCD. So, I said, 'Hugh, straighten up your tie.' And he goes and fixes it. And then one collar was outside of his suit... And I went, 'Hugh, fix that.' And then he was looking like Rodney Dangerfield. He should sit on the back of like in 'Broadcast News' sit on the back of your jacket, so that it's nice and tidy."
"He was not very friendly," added Chung of Grant. "I had interviewed him right after ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ (in 1994) for his next movie. So when I saw him, I said, ‘Oh, hi. I interviewed you… do you remember?’ And he said, ‘No.’ So I went, ‘OK.’ I figure he was getting into his acting zone, whatever that is." Continuing the scandalous dirt-dishing, Chung compared broadcast journalists Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer to Tonya Harding. For the unversed, Harding, a two-time Olympian and a two-time Skate America Champion, became embroiled in controversy when her ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, orchestrated an attack on her fellow US skating rival Nancy Kerrigan. "When I went to ABC news, I joined with both Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer there and I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be great,’" Chung recalled. "‘It'll be three women who get along.’" Chung alleged, however, that the scene was "not unlike what Tonya Harding did to Nancy Kerrigan."
"When I got to ABC, both Diane and Barbara were in the same sort of arena of trying to get these big interviews," said Chung. "So when I tried to go after them, I was told I could not. That Barbara and Diane were the only ones who could compete for the interview and I had to stand down. And I said, ‘Really?’" She also described Dan Rather, her CBS co-anchor in the ‘90s, as "very Texas gentlemanly," adding, however, “If I turned my back, I felt like I might be in a scene of ‘Psycho’ in the shower.”
Chung, however, had good things to say about David Letterman. "I had this thing for him, and he had a thing for me, and I really think it was inexplicable in that respect," Chung said. "And yet I really didn’t have a thing for him. Do you know what I mean? I love people who have a sense of humor and who are charming, and he was that when he was on the air."
"[But] off the air, he’s dark," Chung continued. "He’s a dark, unhappy sort of, I don’t mean he’s unhappy. He’s a kvetch. He’s a goyishe kvetch… He’s antisocial is what he is."