Love Truly’s Richard Curtis on scripting nightmares and awkward dates: one of the best quotes from our interview

Love Truly nearly did not make it to the large display it was such a catastrophe. He spent years relationship girls who have been too quiet. He unintentionally picked the identical home to movie in for each Love Truly and About Time (however are you able to guess the place it was?).

These are simply a number of the most fascinating and ever-so-slightly stunning revelations rom-com king Richard Curtis tells The Normal in a really particular charity episode of our new relationship podcast, London Love Tales, in honour of our Winter Survival Attraction with Comedian Aid.

The eight-part podcast collection follows Londoners and their real-life love tales, from {couples} that met on the Tube to fateful 999 calls, however Curtis’ love story is a bit of completely different to the others featured within the collection thus far.

His specific episode will not be about his love story along with his spouse, nor along with his varied ex-girlfriends — although each definitely characteristic — however with London; the town that has supplied a backdrop for the final 40 years of his life and for thus lots of his movies, from 4 Weddings and a Funeral to his newest Christmas film, Genie, and the town he believes is without doubt one of the most loving on the earth, not simply when it comes to Londoners’ propensity for love, however their propensity to indicate love to one another, too.

From his favorite London filming areas to the true motive he units so lots of his films at Christmas, listed below are a few of his most bombshell quotes.

To some extent London is only a very large movie set. Once I move these ponds the place Hugh Grant and Colin Firth had a combat, I feel ‘there’s Hugh and Colin’ and after I go to Trafalgar Sq. I bear in mind a really windy evening on high of the Nationwide Gallery, making an attempt to get an attractive shot of the big Christmas tree heading down
in the direction of Downing Avenue.

And Greenwich the place we shot the second marriage ceremony in 4 Weddings and my blue door in Notting Hill. To some extent, London is only one large, terribly lovely movie set which has managed to pull me via my profession.

The factor I like about Christmas is it’s a deadline. That’s why Love Truly is about at Christmas; I used to be making an attempt to think about a time the place if there have been 10 folks in comparable
conditions they’d should kind out by December 25.

I at all times used to assume I might seal the deal earlier than Christmas. And I do assume I purchased numerous pink coats, just like the one Martine wears in Love Truly, within the hope that it will change some lady’s thoughts – nevertheless it by no means did. Effectively, as soon as. I feel I purchased one for Emma [Freud, his wife], and issues have turned out okay on that entrance… I feel she’s received three!

We have been meant to have an LGBTQ story [in Love Actually] nevertheless it received lower and I really feel as if I let myself down there. And the variety concern may be very completely different now.

It might’ve been pretty to make the movie extra culturally wealthy. To have had Hanukkah, to have had Diwali in there. So I do assume if I did it once more it will have a broader unfold to it.

I don’t assume I’ll do one other one as a result of Love Truly was certainly one of my movies that was closest to a catastrophe. Two months earlier than it got here out, it was an absolute mess.

I initially wrote the movie like ABCDEFG, with one bit of every story one after the opposite. While you watched the movie it was as if I didn’t truly care about any of the tales. The second you probably did an additional bit you then misplaced curiosity. So what we needed to do was ABCCC, A once more, DDF. It was like enjoying three-dimensional chess. Any scene might go after another scene. 

The ultimate movie is like I threw up the unique script and put it again collectively in a very completely different order. So I really feel as if I’ve received fortunate as soon as, I don’t need to threat it once more.

I bear in mind we have been looking for the proper home for Rachel McAdams to dwell in with Domhnall Gleeson in About Time. We seemed and seemed and finally discovered this pretty home on the Golbourne Highway.

On the evening we have been filming there, Emma Thompson turned up and stated ’Oh wow, similar home’. I stated: ’Sorry, what are you speaking about?’. It turned out it was actually the identical location the place the character of Colin lived in Love Truly. In order that’s received to be my favorite location as a result of I picked it twice with out even understanding!

I like that insane factor the place you could have a avenue of 20 homes and certainly one of them goes the total Christmas. I’d love to fulfill the folks that do this. When did they begin planning? How a lot did they spend on the decorations and their electrical energy payments?

I’d love to fulfill the individuals who have these homes with 14 Santas outdoors. I’d like to resolve the psychology of these folks.

I like the variation of the voices of the individuals who make all these bulletins on the Tube. I at all times love that: once you get a characterful one who’s truly being pleasant to you when advising you to not dive down onto the tracks.

My favorite factor nowadays is that announcement on the Tube which says ’should you see something which doesn’t look proper please report it’. I’m at all times questioning whether or not I ought to report when somebody’s jumper clashes badly with the color of their coat, as a result of it doesn’t look proper.

I ponder whether, should you report it to say that hat doesn’t go together with that tie, whether or not somebody will take that particular person apart and say ‘I’m sorry sir however that actually doesn’t look proper and I feel you’re going to should take off both the headband or the hat as a result of they don’t go collectively in any respect’. 

I’ve simply moved home and there’s this man who’s promoting the Huge Concern on the finish of certainly one of our streets. I’ve handed him a number of occasions over the previous couple of weeks and given him a bit of money, and the final time I handed him he stated: ’Will you be again tomorrow?’ And I stated: ’Most likely’ as a result of I stroll to the Tube station each day.

I went and handed him the following day and he reached into his bag, went via all kinds of issues and took out an enormous pot of honey. And he stated: ’That is honey from my hometown’. I feel he got here from Romania. He gave me again a present in gratitude for the little bits of cash that I’d been giving him. I like that feeling.

It jogged my memory of a time after I first went to Ethiopia with Comedian Aid. I bear in mind a beautiful piece-to-camera the place somebody stated: Thanks very a lot for the assistance that you simply’re giving – and if ever you in England are in bother it’s essential to get again in contact with us and see if we are able to ever assist in any means’.

It was a reminder that you need to at all times attempt to think about the lives of the folks you’re giving cash to and the truth that they have been somebody’s dad, somebody’s uncle, somebody’s child sooner or later. It’s price remembering the humanity of everybody.

The most effective issues about London is it’s cosy. I’m fully obsessive about that factor of wanting in different folks’s home windows at evening. I’m not accusing myself of a criminal offense right here, I’m simply saying that it’s at all times chilly outdoors and also you look in and you’ll see a hearth and you’ll see a Christmas tree and the lights.

Once we shot Love Truly we went spherical and shot all of the lights, and I have to say the lights are getting higher and higher with each passing 12 months. Individuals have clearly came upon that being noisy and vivid and vibrant pulls within the clients, so I feel London’s changing into extra radiant and luminescent with each passing 12 months now.

I significantly love the range and the variety of individuals in London nowadays. I nonetheless really feel in Paris everyone’s French and everyone’s… imply. However in London there’s every kind of individuals, out of your unique Cockney to your police posho. Right this moment we’ve received such a wealthy mix of cultures and hues and significantly meals. I really feel as if after I come to London I’m simply experiencing the world relatively than simply bumping into Miss Marple.

I’ve been right here for thus lengthy that in some methods London is simply an enormous chunk of my thoughts. I’ve at all times thought that if I ever wrote an autobiography I’d simply put a map of London on the entrance web page with tons and plenty of pink numbers by it and describe the 100 most attention-grabbing issues which have occurred right here throughout my countless life right here.

In some methods what’s stunning to me now the years have passed by is how a lot London has not modified. I bear in mind once we first moved to the Portobello Highway everybody stated ’Oh, it’s all simply going to develop into fully industrial, you gained’t be capable of recognise it, it’ll simply be filled with 5 Guys and McDonalds’ – and really the Portobello Highway nonetheless completely smacks of what the Portobello Highway at all times smacked of, which is all of the market locations and the curious shops promoting incense and vegetarian meals. I’ve been delighted by how slowly it’s modified, truly.

I do assume London is filled with romance, too. Dickens is simply such a robust determine in all our imaginations, so it’s traditionally romantic. You so typically simply flip a nook and there’s a cobbled avenue and a wooden-ish Shakespearian homes. So I discover it traditionally romantic. After which nearly each time I’ve fallen in love and wandered by the facet of the river [in despair] it’s been in London by the Thames. So it’s definitely been the context for an infinite quantity of romantic stuff for me.

I do assume that the river is tremendously romantic, whether or not you’re strolling by it or crossing its bridges. I don’t know should you bear in mind however in 4 Weddings and a Funeral, Hugh chases after Andy McDowell on the Embankment. In Love Truly, Liam Neeson sits subsequent to Thomas Brodie-Sangster on the bench with these astonishing buildings behind.

Numerous London’s romance has to do with the river and loads of it has to do with nighttime. If ever you’re capturing a scene and individuals are sorting their lives out, it’s evening and London’s wanting very fairly. I take into consideration Keira Knightley working after Andrew Lincoln after he’s proven her these playing cards: it’s that factor of it being pitch darkish, of there being Christmas lights in all places… So I’m going to say London’s romance has received lots to do with darkness and water and lights.

I bear in mind a unprecedented factor. It was at Christmas and I ran into some lady I’d had an amazing crush on, years in the past, she’s married now. I stated ’Let me purchase you a gift for outdated occasions’ sake’. And he or she stated ’That’s a stunning thought’. She took me to Ralph Lauren! I imply, I meant some wine gums.

I simply checked out horror of the worth tags she was making an attempt on. Fortunately she was so trendy that none of them truly got here as much as her normal and I feel I did find yourself shopping for her a packet of wine gums. That was certainly one of my scary London romantic moments.

In case you take a look at the curve of my films, they’re at all times considered romantic comedies however loads of them are as a lot about friendship as they’re about romantic love, and more and more, not too long ago, as a lot about household as they’re about romance. These are the three large loves: household, romance and associates.

Notting Hill the film was impressed by the truth that I used to have dinner each Tuesday with the identical set of associates, and it was at all times precisely us. I had this dream after I was driving to Clapham in the future: what would occur if I turned up with Madonna? How would they react? And I knew how they’d react: certainly one of them could be completely nuts as she was a completely obsessive Madonna fan. And my two hosts would by no means have heard of her, so that they wouldn’t recognise her.

So it’s about London and friendship. You want associates much less once you’re in love however extra once you’re not so it’s nearly just like the mirror picture of romantic love is having your pals there to select up the slack when issues go mistaken.

Usually once we’re coping with every thing besides love, we make clever, coherent selections. You say ’I don’t like going to this place, so I gained’t go to that place once more. I don’t like that form of meals so I gained’t eat octopus’.

However typically in our love lives we enable ourselves to stumble into the identical errors. And I feel [the advice I wish I’d had is] simply sitting again, and considering: ’Are there qualities that I actually need from the person who I would fall in love with?’ and to search for that.

I bear in mind specifically, after I was about 30, I out of the blue realised that the factor I most wished from any individual I like was for them to be talkative. I realised I’d been out with a number of fairly quiet folks and I used to be at all times filling within the gaps. So that you’d get right into a automobile and say ’How was your week?’ they usually’d say ’Positive’ and I’d assume ’Oh my God, we’ve received 59 extra minutes to speak about it’.

So my recommendation, once you’re searching for love, is see whether or not or not you’ll be able to truly spot what you need: I somebody who’s tall, I need somebody who’s quiet, I need somebody who’s chatty, I need somebody who’s beneficiant…

I feel possibly simply attempt to restrict the sphere of your search a bit of bit, is perhaps a useful bit of recommendation. Take a look at your self a bit from the surface and say: ’What does this
particular person want?’ Reasonably than: ’What do I would like?’.

What love means to me is the sound of the early Beatles songs. In Love Truly there’s a line the place Emma Thomson says she learnt every thing about life from Joni Mitchell. For me, it’s the sound of early Beatles songs which taught me you will be completely happy, you will be in love, you will be exuberant, all these sorts of issues.

In a humorous means, like to me is the factor that feels a bit just like the Beatles.

I’m a fantastic believer that love truly is throughout and I by no means cease considering that for all of the horrible issues occurring in our world, someplace in London half one million individuals are falling in love.