‘Love Actually’ director regrets fat-shaming jokes: No ‘longer funny’
British director Richard Curtis may be the king of rom-coms, helming classics such as “Love Actually,” “Bridget Jones’ Diary” and “Notting Hill,” however, Curtis, 66, has expressed regret over the lack of diversity, as well as body-shaming jokes he’s used in his works.
The screenwriter was interviewed by his daughter, Scarlett, at the Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham literature festival and they looked back on the hit romance flicks.
Curtis expressed remorse for his fat jokes, saying: “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,” he went on.
In the 2003 comedy, the character Natalie, (played by Martine McCutcheon), is often referred to as “the chubby girl.”
In 2001’s “Bridget Jones’ Diary,” Renée Zellweger’s character is frequently worried about her size and is trolled for her plumper frame.
Curtis was also asked why 1999’s “Notting Hill” was full of straight white men.
The “War Horse” writer explained: “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.”
He added: “I think I was just sort of stupid and wrong about that.”
Zellweger, 54, apparently had a hard time gaining weight to play Bridget Jones, and was on a 4,000-calorie-a-day diet at the time.
The Oscar winner said in 2012 that she was worried about bulking up, but she was adamant on playing the part of the down-on-love, 30-something news journalist properly.
“It would be silly if Bridget was talking about her chubby thighs and they weren’t chubby,” she told Closer magazine at the time.
When the final film in the “Bridget Jones” trilogy dropped in 2016, the “Chicago” alum opened up about how Bridget’s weight was shown on-screen over the years.
On the “Today” show, she said: “I never thought she had a weight issue. I thought that was just something that, all of us, we think: ‘Oh, I’d love to change this thing about myself.’ When in fact nobody notices it but you.”
“Bridget is a perfectly normal weight, and I’ve never understood why it matters so much,” Zellweger later told British Vogue.
