Hugh Grant plays an Oompa-Loompa in the upcoming Wonka prequel movie.

In exclusive footage screened during CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Tuesday, it was revealed that the British actor has a role in the film alongside Timothée Chalamet as Roald Dahl’s famed chocolatier Willy Wonka.

The extended trailer, which has yet to be publicly released, showed Chalamet’s young Wonka meeting one of the Oompa Loompas, played by Grant, when it is trapped in a small glass jar. He later hires the Oompa-Loompa to help run his chocolate factory.

According to IGN, Grant’s character looks similar to the Oompa-Loompas that appeared in 1971’s Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, which were portrayed by actors with dwarfism. Deep Roy, who is 4 ft 4 in (132 centimetres), played all of the factory’s workers in Tim Burton’s 2005 version, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

In the new musical, which serves as an origin story for the quirky inventor, Grant’s face appears on a CGI Oompa-Loompa and he describes his diminutive character as “a perfectly respectable size”. It is unclear if the Notting Hill star will play one or all of the orange-skinned and green-haired employees.

This casting news means Wonka serves as a reunion between Grant and his Paddington 2 director Paul King.

During the CinemaCon presentation, Chalamet called his all-singing, all-dancing role “a dream come role” and described his version of Wonka as “full of joy and hope and desire to become the greatest chocolatier”.

Wonka, also starring Sally Hawkins and Olivia Colman, will be released in cinemas on 15 December.

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