The director of Love Actually deplores his grossophobic humor and the lack of diversity in his films

If we had to redo it ? Richard Curtis wouldn't do it again. Or at least not like that. The director, who enjoyed success at the end of the 1990s with great romantic comedies like Love at First Sight in Notting Hill (1999) and Love Actually (2003), now judges that we can no longer laugh at same things. “For my generation, calling someone fat was funny but that’s not the case anymore,” he explained last weekend. He was a guest at the Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, a festival in the west of England, organized by his daughter Scarlett Curtis, which ended on Sunday.

In front of the public, father and daughter discussed the subject. Feminist activist and former Sunday Times columnist, she pointed out, with a touch of humor, the various missteps committed by the 66-year-old director. “I feel the problems coming,” said the sixty-year-old before the interview even began.

In question, outdated and recurring jokes in his films, in particular with regard to women and their weight. In Bridget Jones's Diary, Renée Zellweger's character is mocked for being overweight and having "butt the size of Brazil." Clumsiness that the New Zealand director seems to have understood over time and after discussions with his daughter. “I still remember the shock I felt five years ago when Scarlett said to me, ‘You can never use the word fat again,’” Richard Curtis says. For my generation, calling someone fat was funny, we made jokes about it in Love Actually, but those jokes aren't funny anymore."

The 68-year-old director and screenwriter was also asked about the issue of diversity in Notting Hill. The story then takes place in a cosmopolitan district of London, known for its fight for the rights of black people. The problem is that no black actor is in the cast. Once again, Richard Curtis admits “to having been wrong”. “I would have liked to be avant-garde,” he says. But since I came from a very non-diverse school and group of university friends, I didn't feel legitimate to write these roles and I didn't know how to go about it.