Filmmaker Richard Curtis has said the lack of diversity in Love Actually makes him feel “uncomfortable and a bit stupid”.
The 2003 festive rom com was celebrated with a US TV special – titled The Laughter & Secrets of Love Actually: 20 Years Later – this week, featuring interviews with cast and crew.
Richard, who wrote and directed the film, said he found people’s ongoing fondness for it “really touching” but admitted there were moments that are now “bound to feel out of date”.
The film delves into different aspects of love as shown through 10 separate stories involving a wide variety of individuals, many of whom are shown to be interlinked as the tales progress.
However, the main cast is overwhelmingly white and the relationships focussed on are exclusively straight.
Richard was asked by interviewer Diane Sawyer if there were any parts of the film that made him “wince”, to which he said: “There are things that you would change, but thank God society is changing.
“My film is bound in some moments to feel out of date. The lack of diversity makes me feel uncomfortable and a bit stupid.”
He continued: “There is such extraordinary love that goes on every minute in so many ways, all the way around the world, and makes me wish my film was better.
“It makes me wish I’d made a documentary just to kind of observe it.”
Elsewhere in the Love Actually TV special, Richard also revealed one particular scene that drove the late Alan Rickman “insane” during filming.