His first major role was in writer/director Bruce Robinson’s Withnail & I (1987), in which he plays the titular character, a charmingly wasted “resting” actor who lives in a scuzzy little flat with his buddy I (Paul McGann), another unemployed thespian. They notice the slimy lifeform in the sink begin to move and, after a careful search of the trash-filled apartment turns up only empties, decide it’s time for a vacation. Withnail gets his uncle Monty, a rich and randy dandy, to give them the key to his cottage and off the boys go.
Unfortunately, the cottage has no heat, electricity, or even water. To stay warm they decide to burn the furniture in the fireplace. Things get worse as they tangle with a local poacher and become convinced that he is psychotically hunting them. Just as their stoned paranoia hits its peak Monty breaks in at 2AM bringing fine wines, delicious foods, and his very active libido which is now directed at the intensely freaked out I whom he thinks is gay (Withnail had lied about I’s preference to get the use of the cottage). Although the film is very well written, and the episodes pathetically hilarious, it’s Grant’s loud-mouthed performance that is the most memorable.

The growth increases in size and, at least to Bagley, begins to take on human characteristics. Sprouting an eyeball, the eruption continues to develop and begins to converse with Bagley. Of course nobody but Bagley can hear or see the boil for anything more than a vicious pimple, but by the time the doctor decides to lance it, Bagley looks much like The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant. You can probably see where this is going but what really matters is the quick-witted and nasty dialogue, intelligently written by Robinson and delivered by Grant. Grant has been in numerous films since, but these are the two that show him in all his glory.