Hugh Grant has said he will no longer star in romcoms now that he is “older and uglier” and is getting offered a greater variety of roles.

Grant, 57, who plays the late Liberal party leader Jeremy Thorpe in the BBC drama A Very English Scandal, said there was less judgment about working in television today compared with the early days of his career.

“There used to be quite a big snobbery about, ‘Oh, I’m a film star now, I don’t do television’,” he told the Radio Times. “But that is eroding very fast. I saw [Robert] De Niro’s now doing television.

“I’ve always tried to take whatever was the most entertaining thing in front of me at the time. And getting older and uglier has made the parts, you know, more varied.”

Asked whether he would do more romcoms, he said: “That bird has flown.”

Grant has been largely absent from television and cinema screens for the past few years, focusing his energies instead on a campaign to reform press regulation after the phone-hacking scandal.

A Very English Scandal, a three-part drama written by Russell T Davies and directed Stephen Frears, is Grant’s first TV role since the 1990s. It tells the story of how Thorpe faced trial on a charge of conspiracy to murder his former lover Norman Scott, who is played by Ben Whishaw.

Grant said that in order to prepare for the role , he bought a bicycle and went racing around Richmond Park, in south-west London, for four months to lose weight, but he said Thorpe’s sexuality was not something he thought about.

He said the story of the scandal was interesting for him even now, 40 years on from Thorpe’s acquittal. “I’ve had quite a close-up experience of politics in the last six years doing stuff with Hacked Off and meeting politicians, and the motivations of politicians back in the 60s and 70s were really no different to today,” Grant said.

“I’m afraid the number one motive is always themselves and their career. ‘How do I get ahead? How do I move up the Westminster ladder?’ And that was certainly absolutely crucial to Thorpe. He was incredibly ambitious.”