Hugh Grant: Forget About It

In Mickey Blue Eyes, Hugh Grant plays a character who pops the question to his girlfriend, only to discover that her family is part of the mob, reports CBS This Morning Co-Anchor Mark McEwen.

And he was better prepared than one might have expected to play a leading role in a gangster movie.

"For Englishmen - we grow up watching that stuff," says Grant. "We're obsessed with it. I can quote all those clips."

"Maybe it's because it is soÂ…masculine and butch and dangerous in comparison to our prissy tea-drinking English love," he continues.

"We're all obsessed with it - me in particular. I've always been very hurt and surprised since I became a professional actor that Martin Scorsese has never offered me a part in his films. I bring a menace to the screen," Grant adds.

James Caan plays the father of his fiancée, portrayed by Jeanne Tripplehorn. In the course of the film, Caan gives Grant a lesson in how to talk like a mobster because, as Grant explains, "unless I could pass myself offÂ…as this pseudomobster, Mickey Blue Eyes, we're going to get whacked."

"That's the long and short of it. I have the lingo down. We spent a lot of time researching this film," Grant says.

He got a kick out of producing the movie with his girlfriend, Elizabeth Hurley.

"You laugh when you're putting the script together," he says. "It makes you laugh. And while you're shooting and editing it you think, 'Oh, my God! What have we perpetrated here?'"

This summer also saw the release of Notting Hill, in which he co-starred with Julia Roberts. She played a famous star plagued by paparazzi. Grant's solution to the problem of pesky press: Don't make any movies.

"I did it for two or three years," he deadpans. "It's amazing how they disappear from the bushes outside your flat in London and go and torment Kate Winslet or something."

To view an interview of Elizabeth Hurley, read "Hurley's 'Mickey Blue Eyes'."

For a story about how the cast researched their roles, view "Whatsa Matter For Hugh?"

For more information about the movie, visit the official Web site of Mickey Blue Eyes.