‘Wonka’ Director Says Hugh Grant ‘Looks Terrific’ as Oompa Loompa: ‘Because It’s CG, It Looks Terrible Until It Looks Good…It’s a Miracle’
variety.comZack Sharf Digital News Director The official trailer for Warner Bros.’ “Wonka” gave moviegoers a first look at Timothée Chalamet’s singing and dancing chocolatier.
It also dropped a surprise at the very end: Hugh Grant sporting green hair and orange skin as an Oompa Loompa. How did such casting come about?
Thank “Wonka” director Paul King, who previously cast Grant as the villainous Phoenix Buchanan in “Paddington 2.” “Going back to the book, and reading all those poems, and hearing [the Oompa Loompas’] voice as a very sort of cynical, sarcastic, cruel, funny, but wicked voice, I went, ‘Oh… That’s sort of a bit like Hugh!’,” King told Empire magazine. “It was a real light bulb moment – you go, ‘Hugh Grant’s an Oompa-Loompa!
Yes please! Merry Christmas, with a bow on it.’” With “Wonka” not arriving in theaters until the end of the year, King said that he is still working on getting the visual effects for Grant’s Oompa Loompa down to a tee.
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