Hugh Grant jokes that he struggles to "snap out" of darker roles: "I killed three people this afternoon"

Hugh Grant had a perfectly hilarious answer when he was asked about taking on a darker role in new horror movie Heretic – and whether he took that role home with him. 

"With a role like this, where it's a bit darker, how long does it take for you to snap out of it? Does the role go home with you?" AP asked the actor during a red carpet appearance at the movie's world premiere. "It's still very much with me," Grant replied, deadpan. "I killed three people this afternoon. I feel awful about that."

In the movie, directed by A Quiet Place writers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, he plays Mr. Reed, a man visited by two young Mormon missionaries (played by Yellowjackets' Sophie Thatcher and The Fabelmans' Chloe East) who turns out to be much more sinister than they could have ever imagined.

Playing a horror villain may be a change of pace as far as the Paddington 2 and Love Actually star goes, but Grant understands the appeal of the bad guys. "If you go to any pantomime, who does the audience love? They love the baddie and we are drawn to baddies," he recently told GamesRadar+. "My personal theory is that it's because we are bad and it's a recognition of our true nature – selfish, evil, cruel, vicious."

Heretic arrives in UK cinemas on November 1 and US theaters on November 8. In the meantime, check out our picks of the other most exciting upcoming horror movies still to come in 2024.