The actor, jittery on opening nights, is depicted both on and off stage in the biographical film, "Topsy Turvy". Hesketh Pearson wrote in 1935 that Grossmith injected himself with drugs to calm his nerves. and in the film he is shown injecting himself on the opening night of "The Mikado". In his diary, Arthur Sullivan wrote afterwards, "All went very well except Grossmith, whose nervousness nearly upset the piece". Grossmith spoke self-deprecatingly about his own vocal prowess (Sullivan and others disagreed):