'Love Actually' director admits he regrets film's fat jokes: No 'longer funny'

"Love Actually" director Richard Curtis said he regrets making jokes about weight in his films, calling those jokes no "longer funny."

The British director and screenwriter of films like "Notting Hill" and "Bridget Jones Diary," made these remarks during an interview with his daughter, activist and writer Scarlett Curtis, at the Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival this month. 

According to NBC News, Curtis asked her father to comment on the way women and people of color were treated in these films from 20+ years ago, as they've come under increased scrutiny in recent years. 

"I remember how shocked I was like five years ago when Scarlett said to me, ‘You can never use the word fat again,’" Curtis admitted. "And wow, you were right. I think I was behind the curve, and those jokes aren’t any longer funny, so I don’t feel I was malicious at the time, but I think I was unobservant and not as, you know, as clever as I should have been."

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Variety described how in "Love Actually," the character Natalie, played by actress Martine McCutcheon, "is often mocked for her weight throughout the film, with her dad calling her 'plumpy,' a colleague noting she has ‘huge thighs’ and her love interest (Hugh Grant) saying ‘God, you weigh a lot’ after she jumps into his arms."

Curtis also lamented the mostly White casts in his films during the interview.

"I think because I came from a very un-diverse school and a bunch of university friends," Curtis explained. "[With] ‘Notting Hill,’ I think that I hung on to the diversity issue, to the feeling that I wouldn’t know how to write those parts. And I think I was just sort of stupid and wrong about that." 

He acknowledged that he and the rest of the crew did not look "outwards enough" in paying attention to the racial history of the Notting Hill district when making the film.

The director previously told ABC's Diane Sawyer that the lack of diversity in the "Love Actually" cast now makes him feel "a bit stupid."

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"There are things that you would change, but thank God society is changing," Curtis said last year. "My film is bound in some moments to feel out of date. The lack of diversity makes me feel uncomfortable and a bit stupid." 

Curtis is one of several Hollywood figures in recent years whose come out to say they regret their jokes that didn't age well.

However, some comedians and film directors have pushed back on the pressure to apologize for past jokes.

David Zucker, director of "Airplane!", said in an interview last year that his film couldn't be made today, because the criteria for what audiences consider too offensive had changed.

"When we would do screenings of ‘Airplane!’ we'd get the question, ‘Could you do "Airplane!" today?’" Zucker said. "And the first thing I could think of is, ‘Sure, just without the jokes.'"

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