Richard Curtis facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Quick facts for kids Richard Curtis CBE
Curtis at the 68th BFI London Film Festival premiere of That Christmas in 2024
Born	Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis (1956-11-08) 8 November 1956 (age 68) Wellington, New Zealand
Occupation	Screenwriter producer director
Citizenship	United Kingdom
Alma mater	Christ Church, Oxford
Period	1979–present
Spouse	Emma Freud (m. 2023)
Children	4, including Scarlett Curtis

Richard Curtis (born 8 November 1956) is a famous British writer, producer, and director. He is known for creating many popular romantic comedy films. Some of his well-known movies include Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Notting Hill (1999), and Love Actually (2003). He also helped write the scripts for the funny TV shows Blackadder, Mr. Bean, and The Vicar of Dibley.

Richard Curtis has received many awards for his work. In 2007, he got the BAFTA Fellowship, which is a special award for his amazing career in film and TV. He also helped start a big British charity called Comic Relief with Sir Lenny Henry. This charity has raised over £1 billion to help people in need. Because of his charity work, he received the BAFTA Humanitarian Award in 2008 and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 2024.

In 2003, he was named one of the 50 funniest people in British comedy. In 2012, he was even chosen to be part of a new version of The Beatles' famous album cover, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Early Life and School
Starting His Writing Career
Film Success
Helping Others
Personal Life
Filmography
- Film
- Television
  - TV movies
Awards
See also

Early Life and School

Richard Curtis was born in Wellington, New Zealand. His family moved around a lot when he was a child. They lived in countries like Sweden and the Philippines before settling in the United Kingdom when he was 11 years old.

He went to Papplewick School and later Harrow School. At Harrow, he joined the school magazine, The Harrovian. He said this is where he learned how to write funny articles and sketches. He also directed a play at school. This helped him understand that it was okay to "push boundaries and to be funny." When he was 18, he became head of his house and stopped an old tradition called "fagging," where older students made younger ones do chores.

Richard Curtis then studied English at Christ Church, Oxford university. There, he met and started working with the famous comedian Rowan Atkinson. They both joined a comedy group and began writing together.

Starting His Writing Career

Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson worked together on comedy shows. They wrote for the BBC Radio 3 series The Atkinson People in 1978. Then, Curtis became a regular writer for the BBC comedy show Not the Nine O'Clock News. He wrote many funny and satirical sketches for it.

From 1983 to 1989, Curtis co-wrote the popular Blackadder series with Atkinson and later Ben Elton. Each season of Blackadder was set in a different time in British history. Atkinson played the main character, Edmund Blackadder, in all of them. Curtis was the only writer who worked on every episode. They continued their teamwork with the comedy series Mr. Bean, which ran from 1990 to 1995.

Curtis also started writing movies. His first film was The Tall Guy in 1989, a romantic comedy. In 1994, he created and co-wrote The Vicar of Dibley for comedian Dawn French. This show was very successful. In a 2004 poll, The Vicar of Dibley was voted the third-best British sitcom ever, and Blackadder was second. This made Curtis the only writer with two shows in the top 10.

Film Success

Richard Curtis became very famous with the romantic comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral in 1994. The movie, starring Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell, was made with a small budget. It became the highest-earning British film at that time. Hugh Grant became an international star, and Curtis was nominated for an Oscar for his script.

Curtis in London, 1999, the year Notting Hill was released

His next big film was Notting Hill in 1999, starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. This movie broke the record set by Four Weddings and a Funeral and became the highest-earning British film. It tells the story of a bookstore owner who falls in love with a famous movie star.

Curtis also helped write the movie Bridget Jones's Diary in 2001. He knew the book's writer, Helen Fielding. She even suggested that his first script for Four Weddings and a Funeral needed a funeral to balance the happy parts!

In 2003, Curtis wrote and directed Love Actually. This movie has many different characters and stories that are all connected. It features many famous UK actors like Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, and Emma Thompson. The film is about people falling in and out of love in London during the Christmas season. It has become a popular movie to watch every Christmas.

He also co-wrote Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason in 2004. In 2005, he wrote a TV film called The Girl in the Café. This film was made to support the Make Poverty History campaign. It starred Bill Nighy and Kelly Macdonald and won three Emmy Awards in 2006, including one for Curtis's writing.

In 2009, Curtis wrote and directed The Boat That Rocked. This film was about British pirate radio stations in 1966, which broadcast music from boats in the North Sea. Later, he rewrote the script for the movie War Horse (2011) for director Steven Spielberg.

Curtis then wrote and directed About Time (2013), a romantic comedy-drama about time travel and family love. It starred Rachel McAdams and Domhnall Gleeson. He also adapted the children's novel Esio Trot by Roald Dahl into a BBC TV film in 2015, starring Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench.

His film Yesterday (2019), directed by Danny Boyle, tells the story of a young man who wakes up in a world where no one remembers the Beatles except him. He then becomes a global pop star by performing their songs.

Helping Others

Curtis at Montclair Film Festival in 2016

Richard Curtis is a co-founder of Comic Relief, a charity that raises money to help people in the UK and around the world. He also helped start the Make Poverty History campaign. He worked with Bob Geldof to organize the Live 8 concerts in 2005. These concerts aimed to raise awareness about poverty, especially in Africa, and encourage world leaders to help end it.

In 2010, Curtis helped launch the Robin Hood tax campaign. This campaign suggests a small tax on bank trades to raise money for fighting poverty and climate change. In 2020, he co-founded the Make My Money Matter campaign, which helps people understand how their savings can impact the world and encourages them to invest in ways that support a better future.

In 2021, he joined the Rewriting Extinction campaign, which uses comics to raise awareness about the climate and biodiversity crisis. He wrote a comic story for their book, The Most Important Comic Book on Earth: Stories to Save the World.

Personal Life

Richard Curtis lives in Notting Hill, London, and has a country house in Suffolk. He is married to broadcaster Emma Freud. They have four children, including the writer and activist Scarlett Curtis.

Filmography

Film

Short film

Year	Title	Writer	Executive producer
1983	Dead on Time	Yes	No
1991	Mr. Bean Takes an Exam	Yes	No
1991	Mr. Bean Goes to a Première	Yes	No
2010	No Pressure	Yes	No
2020	A Cheeky Nativity Poem	Yes	Yes
	The Quiz Results Are In!	Yes	Yes
	The Vicar's First 'Viral' Sermon	Yes	Yes

Feature film

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Executive producer	Notes
1989	The Tall Guy	No	Yes	No
1994	Four Weddings and a Funeral	No	Yes	Co-executive
1997	Bean	No	Yes	Yes
1999	Notting Hill	No	Yes	Yes
2001	Bridget Jones's Diary	No	Yes	No
2003	Love Actually	Yes	Yes	No
2003	More Great Comedy Moments	No	Yes	No	Direct-to-video
2004	Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason	No	Yes	No
2006	Sixty Six	No	No	Yes
2007	Mr. Bean's Holiday	No	No	Yes
2009	The Boat That Rocked	Yes	Yes	Yes	Also known as Pirate Radio in North America
2011	War Horse	No	Yes	No
2013	About Time	Yes	Yes	Yes
2014	Trash	No	Yes	No
2018	Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again	No	Story	Yes
2019	Yesterday	No	Yes	Producer
2020	Rising Phoenix	No	No	Yes	Documentary film
2023	Genie	No	Yes	Producer
2024	That Christmas	No	Yes	Yes

Acting roles

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1983	Dead on Time	Customer in Cafe	Short film
1989	The Tall Guy	Man Leaving Bathroom	Uncredited
2003	Love Actually	Trombone Player	Uncredited
0TBA	Something Sketchy	Himself	Short film

Television

Year	Title	Creator	Writer	Executive producer	Notes
1979–1982	Not the Nine O'Clock News	No	Yes	No
1984–1985	Spitting Image	No	Yes	No
1985–present	Comic Relief	Yes	No	No
1990	French and Saunders	No	Yes	No	"Episode #3.7"
1990–1995	Mr. Bean	Yes	Yes	No	Also script editor
1994–2007	The Vicar of Dibley	Yes	Yes	Co-executive
2007	Casualty	No	Yes	No	Episode "Sweet Charity"
2010	Doctor Who	No	Yes	No	Episode "Vincent and the Doctor"

Miniseries

Year	Title	Creator	Writer	Executive producer
1983	The Black Adder	Yes	Yes	No
1986	Blackadder II	Yes	Yes	No
1987	Blackadder the Third	Yes	Yes	No
1989	Blackadder Goes Forth	Yes	Yes	No
1997	Balls to Africa: Sporting Noses on Tour	No	No	Yes
2009	The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency	Yes	Yes	Yes
2019	Four Weddings and a Funeral	No	No	Yes

TV special

Year	Title	Writer	Executive producer	Notes
1989	A Night of Comic Relief 2	Yes	No
1989	The Robbie Coltrane Special	Yes	No
1992	Rowan Atkinson Live	Yes	No
2015	Global Citizen Festival	No	Yes
2015	Red Nose Day	Yes	Yes
2017	Comic Relief: Graham Norton's Big Chat Live	No	Yes
	Red Nose Day: Greg Davies' Hot Tub Half Hour	No	Yes
	The Red Nose Day Special	Yes	No
2019	The United Nations Association 2019 Global Citizen Awards & 12th Annual West Coast Global Forum	Yes	No	Segment "We The People"
2020	Cinderella: A Comic Relief Pantomime for Christmas	Yes	Yes

TV movies

Year	Title	Creator	Writer	Executive producer
1988	Blackadder's Christmas Carol	No	Yes	No
1991	Bernard and the Genie	No	Yes	No
1992	Comic Relief: Behind the Nose	No	No	Yes
1995	Oliver 2: Let's Twist Again	No	Yes	No
1999	Comic Relief: Doctor Who - The Curse of Fatal Death	No	No	Yes
1999	Robbie the Reindeer in Hooves of Fire	Yes	Yes	No
2002	Robbie the Reindeer in Legend of the Lost Tribe	Yes	No	Yes
2005	The Girl in the Café	No	Yes	Yes
2007	The Minister of Divine	No	No	Yes
2007	Robbie the Reindeer in Close Encounters of the Herd Kind	Yes	No	No
2008	The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency	No	Yes	No
2013	Comic Relief: Red Nose Day 2013	No	Yes	Yes
2013	Mary and Martha	No	Yes	No
2015	Esio Trot	No	Yes	Yes
2016	Red Nose Day	No	Yes	No
2018	The Red Nose Day Special	No	Yes	No