![\"Hugh](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Hugh-Grant-Actor-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Credit: Alamy<\/p>\n
Sun 7 June 2026 13:30, UK <\/p>\n
Sometimes, to make great art, you have to take risks, though sometimes, it can also be a forgettable crime-themed rom-com featuring Hu<\/a>gh Grant<\/a> as a bumbling British auctioneer who gets himself caught up in the mafia. <\/p>\n Mickey Blue Eyes, released in 1999, saw Grant star alongside the likes of Jeanne Tripplehorn and The Godfather\u2019s own James Caan, Mr Sonny Corleone himself, and while it had the potential to be a big success, what with its strong cast and compelling plotline<\/a>, it wasn\u2019t. The movie wasn\u2019t a complete flop, but it\u2019s hardly Notting Hill, Bridget Jones\u2019s Diary or Four Weddings and a Funeral. <\/p>\n It made $54million, so it could\u2019ve done better, but it could\u2019ve done a lot worse, too. Really, what\u2019s more interesting than the film itself is the behind-the-scenes trivia, not least the fact that nine actors from the movie went on to star in The Sopranos.\u00a0<\/p>\n Besides this, what\u2019s fun to learn is that Grant and much of the cast and crew cosied up to the mafia while making the movie. It\u2019s always good to have them on your side, I guess. When you\u2019re portraying something like the mafia in your movie<\/a>, the last thing you want is for it to come across offensively or unrealistically, so the team behind Mickey Blue Eyes made sure that they were in the mafia\u2019s good books. <\/p>\n After Mike Newell had shot Donnie Brasco, he called up Grant, whom he\u2019d previously directed in Four Weddings and a Funeral, and suggested he get in touch with a certain mafia pal. \u201cMike called me up, slightly nervously, and said, \u2018Hugh, I think you really, really should talk to a very good friend of mine named Rocco. I can\u2019t give you his last name because I don\u2019t actually know it. He\u2019s called Rocco the Butcher, but don\u2019t let that put you off\u2019,\u201d he told Entertainment Weekly.<\/p>\n He continued, \u201cSo we talked to Rocco, and he introduced us to a good friend of his, who was called Vinnie Seven Heads\u201d. <\/p>\n To keep everyone happy, it was Elizabeth Hurley, serving as a co-producer on the film, who weaponised her good looks and charm. \u201cElizabeth did a lot of heavy flirting with them, and they did a lot of heavy flirting with her. I sort of sat off in a corner; they weren\u2019t particularly interested in me,\u201d Grant admitted.\u00a0<\/p>\n Further reading: Cutting Room Floor<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cBut Elizabeth, they adored, and she became their princess,\u201d he said, and director Kelly Makin backed up Grant\u2019s claims, revealing that Hurley was \u201calways right beside\u201d some old mafia guy when they\u2019d go out for meals. <\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to imagine Grant, the aggressively British, floppy-haired heartthrob, who you can picture reading the newspaper over a cup of coffee in his slippers, William Thacker style<\/a>, hanging out with members of an organised crime family. But sometimes a film requires real research and real risks. It\u2019s probably for the best that the mafia didn\u2019t care too much about Grant, and it\u2019s a good job that he didn\u2019t mind his then-partner Hurley getting a little flirty with them (well, that scandal had already happened by then). <\/p>\n He managed to get as close to the mafia as he possibly could while walking away unscathed, although Mickey Blue Eyes wasn\u2019t exactly a masterpiece.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/wp-content\/themes\/far-out-magazine\/img\/google-discover.svg\")
<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Alamy Sun 7 June 2026 13:30, UK Sometimes, to make great art, you have to take risks,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1012930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3935],"tags":[280526,77,1995,118329,3943,16,15],"class_list":["post-1012929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-280526","tag-entertainment","tag-hugh-grant","tag-mafia","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116713859692584182","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1012929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1012930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1012929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1012929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1012929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}