{"id":272151,"date":"2025-11-19T19:21:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T19:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/272151\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T19:21:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T19:21:07","slug":"richard-curtis-makes-hugh-grant-joke-calls-for-impact-producers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/272151\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Curtis Makes Hugh Grant Joke & Calls For Impact Producers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cMaking Hugh Grant<\/a> more rich and miserable\u201d has been the main impact of Richard Curtis<\/a>\u2019s movies up till now, the director joked today, but the Love Actually auteur has a plan to \u201cusher in a new era of efficacy and legacy in our industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring an impassioned Richard Attenborough Memorial Address at the British Screen Forum<\/a> (BSF), Curtis called for the introduction of specialist impact producers<\/a> as he questioned whether TV and movies are \u201cmissing a big trick\u201d and had done enough over the decades to institute real change. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou talk about a direct impact in the real world and half the people I know say that Ken Loach\u2019s Cathy Come Home had an impact on homelessness but that was 60 years ago,\u201d said Curtis.<\/p>\n

\n\tCurtis said this could be resolved by the introduction of dedicated impact producers on each big production, who would seek opportunites to have a real-world impact via partnerships and education. The director, who has long argued for more sustainable filmmaking and joked that he \u201cgets an email a week from people saying they have a great idea for a climate romcom,\u201d called on those in charge to \u201cput aside a small proportion of your budget to pay for an impact producer or integrate an impact producer into your plans.\u201d \u201cA small budget line can have a real world effect, actual achievements rather than just the vague hope of change.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tHe pointed to recent examples such as Black Panther raising millions of dollars for charity, Spotlight partnering with survivor networks for people who had been abused in the Catholic church and Steve McQueen\u2019s Small Axe creating history lessons for the BBC education site.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe said this should be far more commonplace today but there is hope in that there have been major \u201cpractical changes\u201d of late such as improved diversity in front of and beind the camera, intimacy co-ordinators and sustainability officers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWouldn\u2019t it break your heart to work so hard on an issue and then feel like a runner in a marathon who forgets to enter the stadium and do the final lap?,\u201d he questioned. \u201cIf you\u2019ve dedicated many years of your life to making a show about a passionate issue, isn\u2019t it the most terrible shame that you could have saved lives in the real world but for lack of a dedicated person in your team you let the pain go on?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCurtis demonstrated extreme self-awareness when he joked that he has spent a career directing \u201c\u2018hot cross bun titles\u2019, whose biggest real-world effect has been making Hugh Grant more rich and miserable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe was closing the BSF after talks from Prime Video Europe boss Andrew Bennett and Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMaking Hugh Grant more rich and miserable\u201d has been the main impact of Richard Curtis\u2019s movies up till…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[111897,6491,96,111898,111899,70230,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-272151","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-british-screen-forum","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-hugh-grant","12":"tag-impact-producers","13":"tag-richard-curtis","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}