Hugh Grant will be celebrating 40 years since his first on-screen acting role next year, but the British star thinks he’s only really hit his stride in the last decade.

And there are five very good reasons why, according to the 60-year-old actor.

“People say to me ‘You’ve got better as an actor in the last ten years… Why?’ And I sometimes think it may be because of the kids,” he tells Weekend magazine.

The actor has two children with his ex, Tinglan Hong, and three with Swedish TV producer Anna Eberstein, who he married in 2018.

“I mean, it’s completely knackering trying to be a young father in an old man’s body and I’ve found that if you’re 60 and there are five small children in the house you can’t have a hangover either,” he says.

He adds: “But it’s worth it. Absolutely.”

Hugh, who is known for playing ‘the English charmer’ in the likes of Four Weddings And A Funeral and Notting Hill, reveals he wants to play more “revolting roles” as he gets older.

He said: “I don’t know if you’ve ever talked to Richard Curtis about this, but he always found it hilarious that the public might think I really was that nice guy in his films, because he knew very differently. 

“That was a real bit of character acting, because that Mr Nice Guy’s never been me.”

He adds: “I do find that as I grow older I’m increasingly drawn to, and more comfortable in, revolting roles.”

Hugh, who stars alongside Nicole Kidman in Sky Atlantic’s upcoming psychological thriller The Undoing, has recently taken on villains including the evil Phoenix in Paddington 2 and politician Jeremy Thorpe in the BBC1 drama A Very English Scandal.

The Undoing, which starts next month, is about therapist Grace Fraser (Kidman) whose husband (Grant) disappears.