From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is The Business.

These days, Hugh Grant is delighted to play The Bad Guy, as he did in the HBO series The Undoing.

But in an earlier phase of his career, he became famous as the charmingly diffident character in romantic comedies,

for weddings in a funeral, Knobbing Hill, Love Actually, and more.

He made it look effortless as if he were almost playing himself. But in fact, he was finding

it the opposite of Easy. Because I got this thing about 20 years ago where I suddenly, for no

reason at all in the middle of shooting a film, was doing a perfectly easy, straightforward scene,

and I just started panicking.

And the problem is it's just embarrassing, because there you are, and suddenly you can't time

a joke, you can't remember your lines, your armpits are pouring sweat, they have to keep

coming in and mopping you down, you can't breathe properly. And I thought, what the devil's going on here?

Hugh Grant tells us how he got his groove back

and reflects on his decade of work as an activist

following the phone hacking scandal that engulfed the Murdoch clan

a decade ago and continues to reverberate today.

But first, I get back to bantering.

Stay tuned. It's the business from KCRW.

Hi, I'm joined by my colleague in banter. Matt, Bellany. Hello, Matt. Hi there. So, the box office.

We saw the big opening weekend of summer. You were holding out for quiet place, too, although I heard that you actually did not go to see in the theater as you had vowed due to circumstances. But other people went to see it in the theater. Not because it's bad. I will see it in theaters. I just couldn't get to it. But I'm sorry to break my vow.

Yes, you broke your vow. But others did not, and they went.

It did really well, especially considering that theaters are not at capacity, did so well that

John Krasinski and Emily Blunt, who had been concerned about the 45-day window that Paramount

...