Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant attend the Music and Lyrics premiere on February 12, 2007 at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City. (Photo: Sylvain Gaboury/FilmMagic)
Drew Barrymore had a surprisingly sweet response to her Music and Lyrics co-star Hugh Grant’s criticism of her singing voice on Thursday. She just played part of the movie’s big song, the catchy “Way Back Into Love”, missed notes and all, using a hairbrush as a microphone.
“Oh, Hugh… bert. Hubert,” she said before singing again, “this is for youuuuuu.”
Earlier in the week, Grant described the actress and talk show host’s voice as “just appalling”.
It came during an interview with Wired, when the star of the upcoming Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was asked if he sang himself in the 2007 rom-com, in which Grant plays a beat-up pop star who teams with Barrymore to write a catchy pop song writing for a celebrity reminiscent of Britney Spears (played by Haley Bennett). The song they’re dreaming up is the catchy “Way Back Into Love,” which was actually written by the late Adam Schlesinger. A version of the tune on the official soundtrack is actually credited to Grant and Barrymore.
“Yes I do, but I’m incredibly automatic,” said Grant, who was seated alongside his co-stars Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez. “Actually, that’s not true, I’m a bit automatic, but not as much as some. Drew Barrymore was in this film with me and I don’t think she minds if I say her singing is just awful.”
With a chuckle, he added, “I’ve heard dogs bark better than they sing.”
Ouch.
“But after they hired her, she sounded a lot better than me,” Grant said, “because she’s got heart and voice and rock ‘n’ roll, whereas I sounded like Julie Andrews and I was meant to be rock.” n’ roll.”
The two revealed they have remained friends since their film hit theaters last year when he appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show. And it turns out her first interaction was when she reached out to him during what he put it “the dark days of my Divine Brown scandal.”
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“You will always have a place in my heart,” Grant told her.
The presenter then mentioned that Grant was “kind of a curmudgeon,” which is exactly what he appeared to be on Sunday’s Oscars red carpet when he had a painfully awkward interview with model Ashley Graham because he refused to to answer their questions more than a few words. Graham’s own response, which she gave to TMZ cameras, was: “You know what, my mama told me to kill people with kindness. Let’s go.”