When co-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods started thinking about who could play the antagonist in their new horror film Hereticthey knew it had to have some specific characteristics. The film is about a man who lures missionaries to his home, turning a pleasant conversation about religion into a nightmare scenario. So he had to be able to disarm with charm and humor, before switching to intense and terrifying. “He had to have moments where he felt dangerous, felt safe, conflicting qualities that had to coalesce into something,” Beck says.

Early in the casting process, the pair landed on a surprising name — and they couldn’t let it go. “As soon as we thought of him, we thought, ‘This has to be Hugh Grant,’” Beck says. “That’s the only person we could see in this role because he checked all those boxes.”

The idea of ​​putting you at ease is crucial to the film and the character. Heretic opens with two young Mormon missionaries – Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) – approaching the wrong house while proselytizing door to door. At first, Grant’s Mr. Drove completely harmless. He wears a cozy cardigan, stumbles over his words, makes lame jokes and offers his guests Coke. His house is filled with the smell of a blueberry pie baking. But eventually the cracks begin to show, and Reed turns to preaching his own beliefs before taking a much more sinister direction.

The character is inspired by a mix of real-world figures, including notable atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, as well as cult leader Keith Raniere. The directors emailed back and forth with Grant for about four months as he picked apart the character and peppered them with questions about Reed’s origins and beliefs. “I think those conversations made the character more clear to all of us,” Woods explains.

Raniere in particular influenced Grant’s view of Reed. Grant “was interested in the word salad that Raniere can conjure up in a way that almost makes him feel smarter than he actually might be,” Woods says. “He also responded in the way he creates the illusion of listening, which makes him seem less threatening.”

The directors believe that Grant’s previous work, particularly his early career as a bumbling romantic comedy star, sets the expectation that this is not a character to be feared. “Early in his career…he didn’t feel threatening in any of these roles,” Beck says. “But once you put him in a movie that has the aspect of a suspense thriller, and he starts to show up in a way you’ve never seen before, what else we know about him becomes a weapon.” Woods added, “We lean heavily on his charisma and charm and all the things we know and love about him.”

In many horror films, it’s hard to believe that characters are stuck in a dangerous situation. But inside Heretic, you can understand it; The warning signs are subtle at first, and once they become more obvious, it’s too late. And that’s because of Grant’s ability to show both sides of the character so convincingly, putting his guests (and viewers) at ease initially.

“He’s funny and open-minded, he wants to hear what they have to say,” Woods says of the initial dynamic between Mr. Reed and the two missionaries. “There is the feeling of two young women talking to an older man who seems very knowledgeable about their religion and all religions. So we find them sitting there and dealing with this topic. And their best course is to listen to him politely and then extricate themselves from the situation.

There’s another aspect to Grant’s character that makes him scary, something that will be familiar to anyone who spends a lot of time on the Internet: he’s a debate bro. The film is about Reed convincing Barnes and Paxton of his own beliefs. Without spoiling the details, he has a special disdain for almost all organized religions. The conversation with the missionaries is almost a game. He has spent a lifetime studying so he can anticipate their questions and defeat them with logic. Reed doesn’t have much interest in hearing what the sisters really have to say; he just wants to prove himself right, using all the characteristics that Grant embodies so well.

“What scares us most is someone who approaches something with so much certainty that he is steadfast,” Beck says. “The great thing about discourse and debates is that you listen actively. One thing about the movie that we’re excited about is that we can throw all these questions and conversation pieces in there, and Reed can feel like that guy on Reddit.

Heretic is in cinemas from November 8.