Richard Curtis
Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis was born on 8 November 1956 in Wellington, New Zealand, and holds New Zealand citizenship alongside his British identity. He attended Papplewick School and Harrow School before going on to study at Christ Church, Oxford — a trajectory that placed him firmly within British cultural life even as his origins lay in the southern hemisphere. Working in English throughout his career, he has operated as a screenwriter, producer, director, and film actor.
Curtis began making his name in British television comedy, writing material for Not the Nine O'Clock News and Spitting Image early in his career. He went on to co-write the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean, and The Vicar of Dibley, establishing himself as a significant presence in British comedy writing across several decades. That television work demonstrated a range that moved from sharp political satire to gentler, character-driven humour.
His work in film brought him to wider international attention. Four Weddings and a Funeral in 1994 and Notting Hill in 1999 were among the films he became associated with as a screenwriter. He contributed to Bridget Jones's Diary in 2001, and in 2003 he wrote and directed Love Actually, a film in which he also worked as a producer. These projects, rooted largely in a recognisably British — and often London — setting, ran through the late 1990s and early 2000s as a connected strand of his output.
Curtis has received recognition across several areas of his professional and public life. He holds a Primetime Emmy Award and a Writers Guild of America Award, and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Beyond his screen work, he was awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, a distinction given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for outstanding humanitarian work. That award stands as a formal acknowledgement of the part of his life that extends beyond writing and filmmaking.
Quotes by Richard Curtis
Bob Geldof feels the big picture all the time, even in the smallest argument when someone’s saying, ‘Well, no, you’ve got to have three staples in the program, not just two,’ Bob feels people dying somewhere.
It’s always a mistake for writers to key their submissions to world events, because they move so quickly and unpredictably, as has certainly proven the case in Afghanistan.
Why, on to the castle, to kill the royal family, and claim the throne that isn’t mine by right!
He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world, no one had ever done it before. Perhaps no one ever will again. To my mind, that strange, wild man who roamed the fields of Provence was not only the world’s greatest artist, but also one of the greatest men who ever lived.
I have to declare in all candor that no one interested in being published in our time can afford to be so naive as to believe that a book will make it merely because it’s good.
You see, that’s the whole point of being in government. If you don’t like something you simply make up a law that makes it illegal.
No one likes it, apart from blind people, and I’m sure even they can sense it’s profound ugliness as it passes by.
The more I think about things, the more I see no rhyme or reason in life. no one knows why some things work out and some things don’t. Why some of us are lucky and some of us get...
It seems to me there’s so much more to the world than the average eye is allowed to see. I believe, if you look hard, there are more wonders in this universe than you could ever have dreamt of.
It's impossible to overvalue the importance of television - both in its serious and less serious functions. It's one of our most important ways of finding out the truth - and also of changing the world, and finding out what in the world needs changing. It's also an immense bringer of joy - I learnt how to laugh through television, and now my children and I, every day of every week, share the joy and stupidity of TV shows - they actually make us HAPPY