Hugh Grant in 'Cloud Atlas'. Photo by Warner Bros.
Grant's Cannibalistic Sensibility
3. Somewhere in the development process, the directors realized they could further express the novel's theme of inter-connectedness by using the same actors throughout each of the six time periods. So, many of the actors played multiple parts — often against type, against gender, and against race. For example, bi-racial Halle Berry plays a white woman in one narrative thread, and an old Korean male doctor in another. While most everyone plays against type at some point, no one does so as much Hugh Grant. "I was quite intrigued by the story, which is brilliant, but I would have done it just for the chance to be a cannibal chief who does a lot of pillaging and throat-slitting. There wasn't much throat-slitting in 'Sense and Sensibility,'" explains Grant.