Richard Curtis has admitted his portrayal of women, and lack of diversity, in iconic films including Bridget Jones’ Diary and Love Actually was “stupid and wrong”.
The screenwriter made the damning admission during a sit-down interview with his daughter Scarlett at the Cheltenham Literature Festival.
When she asked her father about the “growing criticism around the ways your films treated women and people of colour”, the 66-year-old admitted jokes about women’s weight “aren’t any longer funny” and that he regretted not including a single Black character in his 1999 hit film Notting Hill, despite it being set in the historically Black area.
“The noticeable lack of people of colour in Notting Hill, which was quite literally one of the birthplaces of the British black civil rights movement”, Scarlett asked: “Are there things you wish you’d done differently?”
Along with admitting he regretted many of his films having all-white, straight, characters, he added: “Yes, I wish I’d been ahead of the curve.
“Because I came from a very undiverse school and bunch of university friends, I think that I’ve hung on, on the diversity issue, to the feeling that I wouldn’t know how to write those parts. I think I was just sort of stupid and wrong about that.”
Renée Zellweger’s character in Bridget Jones’s Diary is described as having a “bottom the size of Brazil” and the film focuses on her weight and looks.
In 2003’s Love Actually, Natalie, played by Martine McCutcheon, gets the brunt of the comments about her weight, including from an ex who said: “No one’s going to fancy a girl with thighs the size of big tree trunks.”
“I remember how shocked I was five years ago when Scarlett said to me, ‘You can never use the word ‘fat’ again," Curtis told the audience. "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.”
Last year, Curtis told US channel on the Love Actually’s 20th anniversary that he regretted having an all-white cast as it “made me feel uncomfortable".
“There is such extraordinary love that goes on every minute in so many ways, all the way around the world, and makes me wish my film was better,” he added.
