Hugh Grant stars as a strange and dangerous villain in Heretic, A24’s new horror flick that debuted with $11 million last weekend. And at one point in the film he does an impression of Star Wars character Jar-Jar Binks and folks, it’s the worst impression of the hated alien I’ve ever heard.
Heretic, a movie about two young women who quickly regret entering the home of Grant’s character, landed in theaters on November 8 and has already become one of A24’s highest-grossing pictures, beating out movies like I Saw the TV Glow and Love Lies Bleeding in just a few days. Impressive stuff! What’s not so impressive is a moment in the movie in which Hugh Grant’s character does a brief impersonation of Jar-Jar Binks.
On November 12, IGN posted a clip from Heretic showing Grant’s character talking about how, in the future, people will worship Jar-Jar Binks as a religious figure. The clip was later “borrowed” and reposted by DiscussingFilm on Twitter, where it blew up.
Jar-Jar first appeared in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 1999 and people hated him. The negative reaction and abuse pushed Jar-Jar’s actor, Ahmed Best, to nearly kill himself. But since then, he’s bounced back, has a great family, and has returned to Star Wars as a badass Jedi who saved Grogu.
Anyway, I have to imagine that Hugh Grant is aware of who Jar-Jar Binks is and at least looked up one video of the character talking. So I’m going to assume that the horrible impersonation is on purpose and is an example of how the character doesn’t know much about who Jar-Jar is, which might be a clue toward how much you can trust him.
Or maybe Grant did it, everyone on set was silent, he took that as a sign of success and moved on, and nobody had the heart to say it was bad. Either way, I’d pay money to see Grant impersonate more Star Wars characters. Give me your best Jabba or Yoda, my dude.
Heretic is out now in theaters. Don’t boo the screen when his Jar-Jar impersonation happens. Okay?
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