Hugh Grant says it’s rough being an “old man” with young kids during quarantine.
The 60-year-old actor — who has five children under 10 — sarcastically told the Los Angeles Times that “everything’s perfect” amid the surge of COVID-19 cases where he lives in London.
“Well, apart from the fact we’re having a second spike of coronavirus and we’re about to be smashed by a no-deal Brexit, and food shortages and medicine shortages, and everyone is furious and terrified in the streets, and my children won’t sleep and I’ve got a terrible hangover, everything’s perfect,” he said.
He continued, “I’m an old man with very young children and a very exhausted wife [Anna Eberstein]. So it’s just about survival from hour to hour in terms of childcare.”
The “Undoing” actor and Eberstein, a Swedish TV producer who is roughly 20 years his junior, are the parents of three children. Grant also has two kids with ex Tinglan Hong.
And Grant told the newspaper he has spent most of the pandemic “going in and out of a 2-year-old’s bedroom and saying ‘shh’ or words to that effect, though not always that gentle.”
But he said that despite its challenges, being a parent has not only given meaning to his life but has helped him grow as an actor.
“When you say how have I changed as an actor, I strongly suspect that having these children has really helped,” he said. “Because suddenly, instead of being a half-atrophied, middle-aged golfer, I’m a man with a life full of love.”
He added, “I love my wife, I love my children. They love me. And, suddenly — very unusual for an Englishman — I have all this access to emotion. Almost too much access. Sometimes it’s hard to keep it down.”
Grant and Eberstein got married in 2018.