Fashioning Hugh into a proper pop star

Transforming a clueless British actor into a lovable has-been pop star is an elusive art.

Comic Ricky Gervais first flirted with the concept on "The Office" Christmas special, having his prickly (and deluded) alter ego David Brent lip- synch and stare moonily into the camera for a video cover of Simply Red's "If You Don't Know Me By Now ." Bill Nighy took the faux-pop-star act a step further as the aging hipster Billy Mack in "Love Actually" by singing, actually, and over-suggestively gyrating his way through a fiery music video.

Gervais and Nighy, however, have nothing on fellow Brit Hugh Grant. The 46-year-old Oxford University grad not only provides lead vocals and plays keyboard s in a retro music video for "Music and Lyrics," a romantic comedy opening Valentine's Day, he does so in vintage '80s gear, complete with Flock of Seagulls hair and tight white pants.

In his second film with writer/director Marc Lawrence ("Two Weeks Notice"), Grant stars as Alex Fletcher, the less successful half of a Wham!-like '80s duo called PoP! Reduced to titillating middle-aged women at amusement parks and reunions with his old repertoire, Fletcher leaps at an opportunity to pen a duet for new teen sensation Cora Corman and spontaneously recruits his hypochondriac plant lady -- yes, hypochondriac plant lady -- Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore) to play Ira Gershwin to his George.

Though "Music and Lyrics" is not technically a musical, Lawrence specifically commissioned 11 original songs for the film, ranging from Alex's peppy PoP! tunes from the '80s, including the fictional hit "Pop ! Goes My Heart," which energetically opens the film, to the more mellow contemporary songs he ends up performing for a live audience. But transforming Grant from a has-been to a piano-playing, ballad-crooning, retro-pop hottie wasn't an easy journey.

Although Grant portrayed the Romantic-era pianist Frederic Chopin in James Lapine's 1991 film "Impromptu" and a Simon Cowell-like judge for Paul Weitz in last year's "American Dreamz," the extent of the actor's musical training prior to pre production was limited to a year of piano lessons at age 9 with Andrew Lloyd Webber's mother as his instructor. But Grant, who has repeatedly spoken about his boredom with acting and playing the celebrity in the press, eagerly took to his music lessons.

"It wasn't hard to get him to apply himself, once he decided to do the part," says Lawrence, speaking by telephone from Los Angeles. "It was more a question of whether he was going to take the leap at all. And despite the initial trepidation, I think it wound up being more fun for him on some level because it wasn't merely going out and just delivering one-liners, which he does brilliantly, like he normally does."

"He was absolutely determined to get it right," says Lawrence. "And for him, getting it right meant that other musicians were going to buy it."

To help Grant distinguish his sharps from his flats, he worked with Broadway voice coach Michael Rafter, (2005's "Sweet Charity" revival, 2002's "Thoroughly Modern Millie" revival), for several months before shooting started, and continued practicing into production. For big numbers, such as his crooning "Don't Write Me Off" in the final scene, he would quarantine himself from the rest of the cast and crew just to continue rehearsing his playing between takes.

Rafter also worked on vocal performances with Grant, who despite the actor's protests about his voice to the press ("Do you know how music is made nowadays? It's all mixed on a machine and completely fraudulent"), sang all of his own songs, and even recorded his tracks for the soundtrack prior to the first day of shooting.

"Because Hugh had done all of his singing and recording beforehand, when it came time to perform, he was very familiar with the motions," says Lawrence.

And while the songs weren't specifically tailored for Grant's vocal range, Fountain of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger, one of the film's three songwriters, says, "In the back of my mind, I had the idea that he was going to have to sing this stuff, but I was really just trying to make a song that would work and assumed he'd figure out a way to sing it, which I guess he did."

Schlesinger, who was asked to contribute to the album by his pal Lawrence (the two drummed up a friendship after the latter asked to use a Fountains of Wayne song in "Two Weeks Notice") is no stranger to writing pop songs for actors; his title track for Tom Hanks' s 1996 film "That Thing You Do" earned the Williams College grad an Oscar nomination for best song. But more than just writing for Grant's particular voice, he wanted to find a central song that would be believable as both an "I Love You" song and an optimistic ballad.

" 'Way Back Into Love' was the hardest to figure out because it wasn't a straightforward assignment," says Schlesinger, speaking by phone from his studio in New York. He spent more than a month on the one track . "It had to be believable as being written by Alex and Sophie, who are falling in love, but then at the end is performed by Alex and Cora."

No Hugh Grant musical comedy, however, is complete without the actor's patented hip thrust, which he introduced as the boogie ing prime minister in "Love Actually." For "Music and Lyrics," pop choreographer Dan Karaty, whose resume includes jobs for Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, and 'N Sync, helped Grant refine his dance groove and develop a solid base of '80s-style moves from which he could improvise.

Grant's booty camp training came to a head in the music video for "Pop ! Goes My Heart," which was actually the last scene shot. Filmed quickly and "guerrilla-style" in two days, the video is a throwback to Wham! and Duran Duran, complete with skinny ties, cheesy neon hearts, and a checkerboard backdrop.

"I wanted to postpone [the music video] until the very end because I just thought it would be difficult to go completely '80s and then get back into the regular swing of the schedule," says Lawrence. "Plus, I wanted as much time as possible to storyboard it so we would have at least a guidebook to take us through what we wanted to accomplish."

Thus, the video was "choreographed, but not pre-choreographed," says Lawrence, who elaborates, "There were one or two dance moves that we had set up as the top dance moves earlier in the film that we knew we were going to use. Other than that, it was just experimenting on set.

"Additionally, without dialogue, it was very liberating and free to shoot," says Lawrence. "It's also fun to do because it's outside the normal bounds of acting; you get to over-emote." Who says the English can't let loose?