Richard E. Grant Says Diary-Keeping Helped Him Survive Childhood Trauma and Shape His Career

Richard E. Grant’s Early Trauma and the Power of Diary-Keeping

Richard E. Grant never imagined a childhood moment would shadow him well into adulthood—or become the catalyst for his lifelong coping method. When he was just 10 years old, Grant accidentally stumbled upon his mother having sex with another man. As a kid in Swaziland (now Eswatini), this wasn’t something he could talk about at home or with friends. The memory became a “toxic secret” lodged in his mind, making him feel alone and untethered in his own family.

Feeling like he had nowhere else to turn, Grant started writing down what he couldn’t say aloud. That diary wasn’t just a notebook but a private sanctuary where he put all his anger, confusion, and sadness. Writing each day gave him a sense of control and relief, like letting some air out of an over-inflated balloon. This wasn’t just about surviving childhood—over the years, writing things down became his way of sorting through every wave of stress, heartache, or creative block life threw at him.

How Personal Wounds Became Creative Fuel

Richard E. Grant didn’t stash those journals in a drawer and forget about them. Decades later, he reached back to those secret pages when he decided to write and direct his autobiographical film, Wah-Wah. The movie is a raw look at his childhood, set against the background of a turbulent family and a changing society at a multiracial school. Grant didn’t sugarcoat any of it—the confusion, the parental betrayals, the search for identity. The process of putting his own life on screen was anything but simple. While making Wah-Wah, Grant clashed with producer Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar. He’s called her a “control freak out of control,” and their disagreements sometimes threatened to sink the whole production. But making the film—and keeping a diary during filming, which would become The Wah-Wah Diaries—helped him face the ghosts of his past directly.

For Grant, writing didn’t stop at childhood secrets or movie scripts. When his wife, Joan Washington, died after nearly four decades together, he returned to the page. Grief threatened to swallow him whole, but recording his thoughts—no matter how raw or messy—became a lifeline. He compared coping with loss to having “blind faith,” clinging to whatever routines, like journaling, could help him process heartbreak and stay upright.

This habit of writing is woven into his approach to acting. Grant says putting pen to paper helps him dig into a character’s pain and joy, letting him draw on his own real experiences. So when you see him on screen, there’s another layer there: a kid who started writing to survive, now using those same tools to connect with an audience.