Richard E. Grant plays Jack Hock, the sidekick to literary forger Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy) in Can You Ever Forgive Me? Lee Israel, a once-successful biographer, fell into the world of literary forgery as a way to save herself from destitution – and to pay her cat’s vet bill. Their delightful rapport feels so lively, that when it shatters, the silence that moves in between the two best friends becomes the most painful part of Israel’s demise. By chance she runs into Jack Hock, another unsuccessful author who she briefly met at a party a few years ago. Melissa McCarthy stars as Israel, and the story follows her attempts to revitalize her failing writing career by forging letters from deceased authors and playwrights. CHANG: "Can You Ever Forgive Me?" MCCARTHY: (As Lee Israel) OK. GRANT: (As Jack Hock) Can I buy you a drink even though you are the posh writer? is the way Lee and Jack … In CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?, biographer Lee Israel hasn’t had a bestseller for years. After getting fired, Lee’s left with no money, no way to pay her rent, and a sick cat who can’t be treated due to being behind on vet bills.

The film fictionalizes much of Israel’s friendship with Jack Hock, a likable grifter played by Richard E. Grant. MCCARTHY: (As Lee Israel) Thank you. "Despite Lee's curmudgeonly ways, they actually get on together, partly because he just insists on it." By the ’80s she was writing full memoirs of the rich and famous. Israel and Hock make a delightful odd couple of friends, meeting regularly for drinks at one of the Village’s oldest gay bars and trading friendly barbs at each other. is a 2018 American biographical film directed by Marielle Heller and with a screenplay by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty, based on the 2008 confessional memoir of the same name by Lee Israel. In the 1960s and 1970s, Lee Israel was a freelance writer who most notably profiled Katherine Hepburn for Esquire. As for what draws Israel to Hock, Grant offers an insight: "Jack treats Lee in a very courtly way, with a respect and courtesy that I think is unusual in her experience. Among the many pleasures of Can You Ever Forgive Me? She befriends Hock at a bar shortly before beginning her forging escapades. Mary Cybulski/Twentieth Century Fox hide caption Hence, Jack Hock, played by Richard E. Grant like he’s in a sequel to Withnail and I, reprising his cult-classic character as though, after failing as an alcoholic actor, he then failed as alcoholic literary scenester. Can You Ever Forgive Me?