Richard Curtis has revealed what he would do differently if he was to make his most famous Christmas film, Love Actually, today.
The beloved 2003 rom-com tells the story of nine different London couples, all trying to resolve their relationships in time for Christmas. It went onto gross $247 million dollars and is still held as one of the all-time classic Christmas films 20 years on.
Speaking on The Standard's new dating podcast London Love Stories, Curtis, the film's writer and director, admitted he regrets not incorporating more of London's diversity into the film.
He said the original script contained an LGBTQ love story, which was cut for the final version. "I feel as though I let myself down there," he told Katie Strick, host of the podcast and senior feature writer and editor at The Standard.
Curtis, 67, also said he wishes he'd made the film more "culturally rich" and included other religious festivals such as Hanukkah and Diwali. "I do think if I did it again it would have a broader spread to it than the film now does," he added.
He also told The Standard that the biggest reason he does not plan to make another version of Love Actually is because it nearly never reached screens the first time around, in 2003.
"I don’t think I’ll do another one because Love Actually was one of my films that was closest to a disaster," he said. "Two months before it came out, it was an absolute mess... So I feel as though I’ve got lucky once, I don’t want to risk it again."
Asked in what way the film was a mess two months before its release, he explained: "I originally wrote the film like ABCDEFG, with one bit of each story one after the other. When you watched the film it was as though I didn’t actually care about any of the stories. The moment you did an extra bit you then lost interest.
"So what we had to do was ABCCC, A again, DDF. It was like playing three-dimensional chess. Any scene could go after any other scene.
"The final film is like I threw up the original script and put it back together in a completely different order."
The podcast episode also hears Curtis speak about his love story with London over the last 40 years, and how the city has provided the backdrop for so many of his films, from Notting Hill and Bridget Jones' Diary to his latest Christmas film, Genie, starring Melissa McCarthy and Paapa Essiedu.
The Comic Relief co-founder also offers his best dating advice for single Londoners, and explains why Londoners should show love to one another this Christmas bydonating to The Standard's Winter Survival Appeal with Comic Relief, to help fund charities supporting people across London who are struggling with the cost-of-living crisis.
