“He’s had a lot of work done,” Grant said of his rival. “Maybe I shouldn’t say that, but it’s brilliant work. Whoever did it.”
Hugh Grant wants the world to know that he’s really, honestly, truly happy that his Bridget Jones’s Diary costar Colin Firth still has a job.
The Heretic actor was asked to share his thoughts on Firth and his involvement in the film franchise’s upcoming fourth installment, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, while visiting Late Night With Seth Meyers on Wednesday.
“Poor Colin. They’re still wheeling him out,” Grant teased. “No, it’s fine. It’s nice to give the old boy some work.”
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Hugh Grant; Colin Firth
Host Seth Meyers then asked if Grant considered it “charitable” to allow Firth to still appear on screen: “When we see Colin Firth in films, we should see that as an act of charity? Is that what you’re saying?”
That sounded about right to Grant. “Yeah, and actually, he looks fine,” he replied. “He’s had a lot of work done. Maybe I shouldn’t say that, but it’s brilliant work. Whoever did it.”
A laughing Meyers then joked that Firth not only had “incredible taste” but had gotten “the right person” for plastic surgery procedures he might have had done.
“I think so,” Grant said. “And he’s great with his makeup. He does his own.”
Over the past 20 years, Grant’s Daniel Cleaver and Firth’s Mark Darcy have been engaged in a bitter battle to win over the affections of Renée Zellweger‘s iconic journalist in the Bridget Jones films. Their feud has continued off screen too, with the pair often trolling one another whenever they get the chance.
That includes just last week, when Grant revealed in a Vanity Fair interview that his idea of perfect happiness was having a front-row seat to Firth’s downfall. When asked to visualize the moment, he teased, “Drinking a pint of London Pride while munching Twiglets and reading about Colin Firth having a critical and box office catastrophe.”
Related: How Colin Firth and Hugh Grant devised their ‘ineffectual’ fight in Bridget Jones’s Diary
Grant also went viral in 2022 after news broke that he’d seemingly dedicated a BAFTA chair plaque in Firth’s honor, apparently writing, “In loving memory of Colin Firth. Not dead yet, but looks it. Sponsored by Hugh Grant.”
Firth has maintained that their trolling is all in good fun. “I get on really well with him. I like the guy, despite his outrageous rudeness about me,” he said in a 2012 interview with The London Standard. “It’s a running joke, and we do it to each other. I’m always hearing how he’s announced that I’m too old to be in the cinema anymore.”
Watch Grant discuss his rivalry with Firth — and being stalked by a hot dog — in the clip above.
