Richard Curtis Regrets Jokes & Lack Of Diversity In Films Like ‘Love Actually,’ ‘Notting Hill’ & ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’

Richard Curtis is looking back at his early films like Bridget Jones’s Diary, Notting Hill and Love Actually and regretting he was not “ahead of the curve” in terms of the jokes and portrayal of women.

At the The Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, his daughter Scarlett interviewed him where she questioned him about “growing criticism around the ways your films treated women and people of color.”

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“I wish I’d been ahead of the curve,” Curtis said.

The writer and director added, “I think because I came from a very undiverse school and bunch of university friends, I think that I hung on to the feeling that I wouldn’t know how to write those parts. I think I was just stupid and wrong about that. I felt as though me, my casting director, my producers just didn’t look outwards.”

Of the fat-shaming jokes, Curtis said, “I remember how shocked I was five years ago when Scarlett said to me, ‘You can never use the word ‘fat’ again.’ Wow, you were right. In my generation calling someone chubby [was funny] — in Love Actually there were jokes about that. Those jokes aren’t any longer funny.”

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