Hugh Grant: `British tabloids are pure evil`

The 50-year-old actor formerly outed the News of the World when he recorded a conversation with one of the features editors who claimed that the actor's phone had been hacked, and that the process was widespread amongst all the leading tabloids in the UK.

And now Grant is on a 'crusade' not just to get justice for himself, but also for the other believed victims.

'The crusade against the people who hacked my phone is just the beginning of it,' he told People magazine. 'I don't think I would be on a crusade if it weren't for the fact that… they were winked at by the police, and winked at by our government.

'Although a lot of my stuff comes from personal grievance, I also am properly outraged for my country.

'There's a culture of pure evil and... very seldom you see it, its black back breaks the surface of life, and one of those examples is the British tabloid press.

'It goes very, very deep, a kind of atavistic rage, and that's how I felt. And pretty much everyone I've spoken to who's been hacked feels really deeply outraged and really determined to get vengeance.'

He continued, 'At the moment my position is not to take legal action, because my motive in this is not money. My motive is exposing this scandal, and in some ways I feel my voice is better heard if I'm completely clean of any financial motivation.'

He believes that the public suddenly stood up and listened when it was reported that murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's voice mail had been hacked. 'That's when the whole nation rose up in revulsion,' said Grant.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has since shut down the News of the World following the scandal, but Grant said that he doesn't care if his campaign leads to him being blacklisted by the Murdoch-owned 20th Century Fox movie studio.

'It couldn't bother me less,' he insisted. 'I don't do much acting anymore anyway, and not to work for 20th Century Fox is really the least of my worries.'