Richard Curtis has revealed that Love Actually almost featured an LGBTQ+ romantic storyline but it was ‘cut’ out.
The screenwriter, 67, is famous for penning 2003’s Christmas smash hit Love Actually, which follows eight different couples over the festive season.
But Richard has revealed that there was originally an additional LGBTQ+ storyline written into the plot, but it was later cut from the film.
Richard has previously spoken about the lack of diversity in Love Actually and addressed criticism of his jokes about people’s sizes in the movie.
Now, speaking to Katie Strick on the London Love Stories podcast, Richard admitted he felt like he ‘let himself down’ by cutting out the LGBTQ+ story from the final edit.
Richard Curtis has revealed that Love Actually almost featured an LGBTQ+ romantic storyline but it was ‘cut’.
The screenwriter, 67, is famous for penning 2003’s Love Actually, which follows eight different couples over the festive season (pictured: Keira Knightley and Chiwetel Ejiofor in the film)
‘There are things about Love Actually that I wish I’d done,’ Richard said as he spoke on a Christmas episode of the podcast in aid of Comic Relief.
‘If I had 10 stories – we did in fact have a sort of LGBTQ story but it got cut and I feel as though I let myself down there.’
Richard went on to detail some more changes he would make to the film if he was writing it today as he addressed its lack of diversity.
‘The diversity issue is very different now and it would’ve been lovely to make the film more culturally rich,’ he said.
‘To have had Hanukkah, to have had Diwali in there, I didn’t focus on that. So I do think if I did it again it would have a broader spread to it than the film now does.’
When asked if he would make a new version of Love Actually now, Richard insisted that he doesn’t intend to recreate the Christmas classic.
He explained: ‘I don’t think I’ll do another one, because Love Actually was one of my films that was closest to a disaster in fact. Two months before it came out, it was an absolute mess. So I feel as though I got lucky once, I don’t want to risk it again.’
The movie is now famous for its interwoven storylines, but Richard revealed the script was originally arranged in a much more linear fashion, before he decided it wasn’t interesting enough.
He said: ‘With all those stories, it was very hard keeping people interested. I originally wrote the film like A, B, C, D, E, F, G – I would have one part of the film one after the other.
Richard has admitted he felt like he ‘let himself down’ by cutting out the LGBTQ+ storyline from the final edit of the smash hit Christmas movie
Richard has previously spoken about the lack of diversity in Love Actually and his jokes about people’s sizes in the movie (pictured: Hugh Grant and Martine McCutcheon in the film)
‘But when I 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 lost interest.’
‘The final film is like I threw up the original script and put it back together in a completely different order,’ he added.
It is not the first time that Richard has addressed Love Actually’s lack of diversity and its jokes about women and people’s sizes.
Last year, Richard admitted Love Actually’s lack of diversity now makes him feel ‘uncomfortable’ and ‘a bit stupid’.
‘There are things you’d change, but thank god, society is, you know, changing. So, my film is bound, in some moments, to feel, you know, out of date,’ he said.
Richard said recently told how his activist daughter Scarlett, 28, made him see that his jokes about women and people’s sizes in the film weren’t funny anymore.
At Cheltenham Literature Festival earlier this year, the director told how he has promised his daughter Scarlett that he will never make ‘fat’ jokes again.
In Love Actually, Martine McCutcheon’s character Natalie – the PA to the Prime Minister – was famously depicted as the ‘chubby one’ and having a ‘sizeable a**e’.
And in the 2001 adaptation of Bridget Jones’s Diary – which Richard wrote the screenplay for – Renée Zellweger’s character was described as having ‘tree-trunk thighs’.
Richard has since told how these jokes are no longer funny two decades on as he spoke while being interviewed by Scarlett.
According to The Times, he told the audience: ‘I remember how shocked I was five years ago when Scarlett said to me, “You can never use the word ‘fat’ again”,’ he said.
Richard said recently told how his activist daughter Scarlett, 28, (both pictured in July 2018) made him see that his jokes about women and people’s sizes in the film weren’t funny anymore
As well as Scarlett, Richard shares kids Jake, 26, Charlie, 22, and Spike with his wife Emma Freud (pictured in March 2022), who he married this year after 33 years together
‘Wow, you were right. In my generation calling someone chubby [was funny] — in there were jokes about that. Those jokes aren’t any longer funny.’
Richard has previously admitted that his children did not like his jokes and said his films were starting to look like ‘historical documents’.
Speaking to Craig Oliver on his Desperately Seeking Wisdom podcast in January last year, The Blackadder and Mr Bean creator said: ‘All my conversations with my children now, they don’t like 20 per cent of my jokes, because they think they’re old fashioned and wrong in some way.
‘So I’m really interested in how a generation that’s grown up to be passionate, angry and pedantic about these issues may well change things for the better.’
As well as Scarlett, Richard shares kids Jake, 26, Charlie, 22, and Spike with his wife Emma Freud, who he married this year after 33 years together.
