Richard E. Grant rages over 'household names' who treated daughter 'appallingly'

Actor Richard E. Grant spoke about his daughter Olivia Grant having followed in his footsteps with a career in the entertainment industry in a recent interview

Actor Richard E. Grant has said that he once confronted a "household name" who treated his daughter "appallingly" when she worked with them in the entertainment industry.

Richard, 67, made the comments whilst promoting the HBO series the Franchise alongside his co-star Darren Goldstein, 50. During one interview, they were asked to share their thoughts on the most "underappreciated" job on a film set.

Footage, shared by Sky News and Associated Press, shows Richard praising runners, who are typically production assistants that work behind-the-scenes on TV and film sets. Their role can involve interacting with cast members.

He goes on to claim that his daughter Olivia Grant, 35, who's now a casting director, was "appallingly treated" when she was a runner earlier in her career. Richard added that things changed when the "well-known" individuals, whom he didn't name, realised that he was her father.

Answering the question, initially phrased as looking into the most "underrated" job, he said: "The runners - who are paid the least amount of money. They're the youngest. They get there at five in the morning and they're the last to leave. And if anything goes wrong, they get s*** on from a dizzy height."

Richard added: "I know because my daughter was a runner for two years and was appallingly treated by some very well-known household names in England, yeah, who changed their tune when they found out who her father was - which made it worse. It made me damn those people even more."

He was then asked by his co-star Darren if he ever had the opportunity to confront any of them, to which Richard responded during the recent interview: "I've met one person, yeah." Asked if he said "something," he said: "Yeah." Olivia is understood to have worked in the industry for more than a decade, having followed in her father's footsteps. Her late mother Joan Washington, who passed away in 2021, also worked in the entertainment industry as a dialect coach.

An IMDb page for Olivia credits her as having been a runner on the films the Riot Club (2014), the Theory of Everything (2014) and Florence Foster Jenkins (2016). She's also listed on the profile as having had production assistant roles on the Invisible Woman (2013) and Philomena (2013).

Since moving into roles within the casting department, she's said to have been a casting assistant on films like Beauty and the Beast (2017) and Cats (2019), whilst her profile states that she was a casting associate on Barbie (2023). More recently, she's credited as a casting director, including on the miniseries Masters of the Air, which was released on Apple TV+ earlier this year.

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