A Bit of Optimism - Guaranteed Joy with Richard Curtis

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

There are precious few moments in life that guarantee joy. That’s what makes time spent with Richard Curtis or watching his films so special – you just know you’re in for a great time.  Richard is the patron saint of love in the movies.  He’s a writer and sometimes director known for optimistic, funny, and uplifting films like: Love Actually, About Time, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Mr. Bean, and many more.I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with Richard on Valentine’s Day of all days to talk about love, joy, charity, and optimism.This is…A Bit of Optimism.For more on Richard and his work check out:https://www.comicrelief.com/ 

If you've ever seen Love Actually, or Notting Hill, or About Time, or Mr. Bean, or Bridget Jones's Diary, and a host of other films and TV shows, then you know Richard Curtis and his work. His work stands out from other comedies and rom-coms because it takes us away from the difficulties and drudgeries of our lives and offers us a moment of guaranteed joy. And it's in these moments of guaranteed joy that we find the inspiration to actually find happiness and do good for others. This is a bit of optimism. Richard, thank you so much for doing this. It's so good to talk to you. I have to recognize, you know, we've been trying to schedule this for a while, and there have been some fits and starts. And that one day we're able to come together of all days, Valentine's Day with Richard Curtis. I mean, you can't plan stuff like that. What are the odds? Well, it is a bit curious. But the truth of the matter is, I'm not actually in real life, a particularly romantic person. I so messed up the first 10 years of Valentine's Days with Emma. We always ended up eating in a sort of Jules chicken takeaway

rotisserie, because I always forget to book and everything, that we now have a tradition that we have dinner the night before on the 13th, because all restaurants are unbooked, because everyone's waiting for the next day. So really, it should have been yesterday, but it's not bad that it's today. You have become the patron saint of love in the movies. You've made a lot of films where love is the theme, obviously, and sometimes the title. I'm very curious. You talked about how you screwed up Valentine's Day for the first 10 years of your relationship. What have you learned about love from your own work? have you learned about love from your own work?

Well, now that's an interesting question. I sometimes worry that all my films, because I started writing the successful films after I got together with them. And so in some ways, they were an act of memory of the kind of panic and sorrow. And I felt doomed that I'd never find anyone to love, and then that coming out right. So in a funny way, I would say that most of my learning is encapsulated in my film About Time. Because in About Time, the first half of the movie is getting together,

but then the second half is the kind of reality of life now. So they have a child. They're living together. You know, one of their parents dies. And the moral of that film, which is just relish the remarkable roller coaster of life. Think of the ordinary days. I was just thinking the other day that we can't remember 95% of the happiest moments of our lives. Because what you remember is winning an

award or birthday party or something. But the really happy moments are Scrabble at 11.50. You know, the really happy moments are nothing days. So I think the fact that I did put that down, that I did say, treasure the moment. If you found love, just live in it and with it. That's much more useful than if you see Julia Roberts try and sleep with her. So I think that's my didactic film and the other ones are just kind of dream fulfillment. I think that's what distinguishes truly happy people from people who are in constant search for happiness, which is it's actually not these big spikes, which, you know, we all have them in moments. It's not the pursuit of those dopamine spikes, but rather it's the appreciation of the mundane. It's the appreciation of the little joys of the little things. I've said that about myself. People ask me, you know,

how am I so happy? Am I so optimistic all the time? And it's because actually the spikes I recognize are just sort of anomalies. But it's looking out the window and seeing a beautiful day and smiling or like getting to see my niece and nephew. You know, nothing particularly special happens. It's just taking a second to appreciate. If you think, okay, what's that? I had a dinner at a really wonderful restaurant. Every bite was extraordinary. And then, you know, two days later, I was with Emma. We were eating some kind of dull mush that she'd made with some parsnips. And I literally could not imagine enjoying bites of food more.

It was inconceivable that anyone could do better. And I know there are people doing better and charging huge amounts of money, but you couldn't be. My dad, I think probably this is the single most profound thing that's stuck in my life, is my dad's motto was, you can't be happier than happy. He said, if you're happy, don't say, but if Kate Moss was here, I'd be happier. If the wine was better, I'd be happier. If the sun was brighter, I'd be happier. If the sun was brighter, I'd be happier. Happy is a definitive state, not one that you've got to try and ratchet up just a few degrees more, because then happy will stop being happy and stop being discontented

because you're not happier. That's the single sort of sentence I think about most of my life. Have you always been this way? Or was there was there a like did you have to learn it well I think and this is the sort of obsessive thing of the other films I was very aware until I found true love that that was a whole you know I lived on my own in a lovely cottage in the middle of the English countryside for sort of seven years and I had a vegetable patch and my mum and dad had come visit me and my work was going well. But I knew there was something for me missing. So I would say I've always been optimistic and shallow. I think the kind of wisdom has come with the luck of love.

And how did you meet Emma? Because I've never told you this, but I have a short list of my favorite couples in the world, right? There's only like four or five people on it. Four or five couples, I should say. And basically, this list of are people who I know, they're friends, I've interacted with them. And more importantly, I've seen them interact. And they are people who I hold as my ideal of the kind of relationship I want to have in the way that they get along, the way they communicate. And I hold as my ideal of the kind of relationship I want to have in the way that they get along, the way they communicate. And I don't want their relationship.

I want relationships that are like their relationships, and I've learned lessons from them. And the way you and Emma interact, and you're not the same people, clearly, I find absolutely inspiring. And the two of you are on my list of favorite couples, and the love that you have is so your own. It's only half the story, Simon. You know who we are when you're not there.

We're on very good behavior when you're there. You know, I'm needy and dilatory. She's problem solving and impatient. There's lots of issues. But look at that. They're opposite things, right? And relationships are more like jigsaw puzzles, aren't they? They're not two people who are the same. And I've made that mistake so many times in dating, which is I meet somebody who's like me,

and I get along, because of course, I get along with them. They remind me of me. But the reality is my best friends are very much not like me. One of the sadnesses of romance is a lot of people make the same mistake again and again. Yeah. And you think you would never like if you don't like living near a railway, don't buy another house next to a railway. And I think that I realized somewhere around the age of 30, I did realize that I wanted to go out with someone talkative. That became the thing. I hated getting into a car with someone for an hour long drive. I'd say, how was your day? And they'd say, fine. And then you think we've got 59 and a half minutes to go. So by the time I met him, I had at least got some

conditions that I thought were crucial. So talkative. How did you guys meet? I mean, actually, I think the first time I'd written a TV show and she was interviewing me down the line from something. And then I can't remember. Happy Valentine's Day. I can't remember how I met my life partner.

She was there. And I saw her at a wedding. And then I think she rocked up to the charity. It's very smoky. It's in the midst of love. That's very English, the way the English meet each other. In America, it's much more sort of prescriptive, there's sort of a social aggression to the whole thing. It's like meet at this time and that's when we will meet where in england it's kind of

like i was at the pub with a group and she was at a pub with a group and we talked once and then i saw them at the pub a second time that's very very english this sort of wandering into a relationship yeah my mom and dad actually met on a blind date. They had the smackerooning. Your dad swiped right. I mean, it was a different kind of blind date in those days, as you can imagine. What is your opinion on online dating and app dating? You know what? I don't think it's my business. There was a lovely moment the other day. In our generation, famously, I think Phil Collins broke up from his wife by fax or something.

And everyone said that's like the worst that a human being's ever behaved. And I mentioned this to one of my children. And they said, you have to break up by text. They said the thought of putting someone in the position where they have to react to your face about that level of rejection, they said that would be the ultimate cruelty. You've got to soften them, you've got to warn them. And then once they've had time to sort out their arguments and defences. So I feel as though modern love, there are lots of aspects to it that I'm not qualified to talk on. And I'm terrified by anything to do with swiping. It seems to work for a whole generation. So God bless them. My theory in life generally, Simon,

I mean, apart from at the extreme ends, is whoever likes anything most is right. You know, if I don't like heavy metal music and my son loves it, He's right. The people who made the music didn't make it for my ignorant ears. And he can hear enormous difference between Lamb of God and Korn and Metallica. So I think that if people are finding it works, great. It's a very live and let live attitude. I'm curious, can you tell me something you've done in your career? It doesn't matter whether it was commercially successful or not. But a project that you worked on, or a script you worked on, or a film you worked on, or a TV show you worked on, it doesn't matter, where you absolutely loved it. And if all of your projects were like this one, you would be the happiest person alive. That's like quite easy for me,

because the truth is, even though I am of jolly of demeanor, and most of my work is cheerful, I find work very hard. It's hard to get things right. It's hard to get things accurate. You need other people and they make things better, but you're not the same as the other people. So I mean, I couldn't have made four weddings without Mike Newell. He put in absolutely as much as me, but it was really hard for us. So I can pretty well identify the couple of times in the last 35 years I've been happy. Once was on a sitcom called The Vicar of Dibley, which is a sweet English sitcom. And it was starred Dawn French, had a lovely cast. You know, we thought it was lovely without being pitch perfect. And that made it like lunch on a Sunday afternoon. I was very happy

doing that. I loved all the people involved. And then the second thing I would say was in the very, very early days when Rowan and I were doing Mr. Bean. Because you didn't have to write a script, I would come with an idea, Mr. Bean at a swimming pool or Mr. Bean cheating in an exam. And I was in the company of a bona fide comic genius. And we were four friends in the room. And you would start the day with one sentence, laugh all day and end the day with a seven minute sketch. I was so happy on those days. But apart from that, it's been a chain gang of sorrow. I want to know a project that you worked on that you loved working on them that stand out. Oh, okay. Well, those, sorry, those are the ones that I was happy. That's a very different thing. Clearly, Simon, the thing I'm most proud of is, you know, comic relief, which was

a kind of emotional whim. I went to Ethiopia in 1986. I saw the worst things that humans can suffer. I came home and I thought, let me just see whether or not I convince the BBC to do a TV show to raise money. And it raised five times what I expected. And every time we do it, it raises more money than I've earned in my entire career or ever will. And it's a kind of miracle because all I'm saying to other people is here's an opportunity, a painless, relatively painless opportunity to do something wonderful. And most people say yes. And the public reacts with extraordinary generosity. And that's my theory, that if you open the door to sort of virtue and good needs, people will charge through. I'm very, very optimistic about the nature of the human heart. And in the end, I think we've raised $2 billion through that.

And clearly, that's, you know, the thing where I just think how wonderful that almost a mistake led me to Africa. And the outcome of that has been millions of lives at really key points usefully transformed. Why do you think Kamar Khalif works so well where other charities don't? unusual when we started that it was fun. My theory was people's lives are hard. There's something you can do about it and you can have fun doing it. So I think that idea of the fact that the Red Nose in itself was stupid, that we did a great big TV show, which was, you know, had an hour of serious and six hours of foolish. I think there was an originality, you know, in that it wasn't unusual, but the mixture, the amount of kind of information and appeals in the middle of stuff was unusual. So I think it was lucky that I applied that thing I know, the world of comedy to that thing I care about, which is the world of correctable suffering. It is such a good insight, right? Because very often we guilt people into giving because there

is suffering and we want them to make them feel bad so that they'll give begrudgingly, rather than being grateful for our lucky lives and saying, I can be in gratitude and appreciate what I have and I can give willingly and wantingly, not through guilt, but through joy. Yeah. And the theory of it, you know, not through guilt, but through joy. Yeah. And the theory of it, you know, is that all we want is other people everywhere to have the right to laugh and feel joy and live without fear. We have often shown very sad things, but it's in the context of a show that's full of optimism. I mean, I don't think we should look away from the sorrow of the world. I mean,

in a funny way, my state of being is that I am always aware of the simultaneity of suffering. I don't get through any day without thinking somewhere a woman is cowering from a violent husband, somewhere someone's packing up their clothes and fleeing their home forever somewhere. Someone's choosing between medicine for one child and food for another. Something somehow slipped in my brain. I think about that more than the weather, and I don't consider it a virtue. It's just a thing. but we should know what's hard and we should know that we can help. I think it also accepts that we can be sad and happy at the same time. I learned this during COVID, that human beings are these magical emotional machines that can actually experience

multiple emotions simultaneously. We don't have to feel guilty for being happy when there's suffering in the world. You can feel sadness and joy simultaneously. Stephen Colbert talked about this, which is you can't be sad or angry when you're laughing. If someone can make you laugh in an argument or in a difficult situation, it is amazing the healing power of the giggle. That's interesting. I mean, there is healing power there. I always think those American late night TV shows, when you're feeling mortified by the

state of the world, they help you find your way around it. I just always think, and then once you've found your way around it, try and do something about it. I want to go back to The Vicar of Dibley and Mr. Bean. Why was The Vicar of Dibley or Mr. Bean joyous where the other stuff felt like work? Well, partly I think because they were quick. If you take my films they're really really slow

simon i sometimes i'll write three no the people watching them may think they're slow too but you know sometimes i'll write for a year and a half having thought of it two years before the casting takes three months the shoot takes three months the edit takes takes three months. The edit takes six months. So it's a really slow, accurate thing where you've almost got to, as an act of will, hang on to the humour and what you're aiming for. But it is like constructing out of tiny little pieces a collage of your original dream.

And I think that's very hard to keep the joy going. Whereas Vicar and Dibley, we had a script on a Tuesday and a show by the Sunday. And Mr. Bean, I had an idea at 10 o'clock and a sketch by five. And then the other is I was really amongst friends. So how come you don't make more short things with friends? Don't ask me difficult questions.

Don't make me regret. Don't make me regret. Don't make me regret my life. I mean, it's a really good question. It's a really good question. And it was in a way, you know, you're not in control of your own destiny. And I got locked into a form of films, which is slow. And comic relief is chunky.

It's sort of seven hours. and it's funny you ask because the only idea i've got for something that i might do now or next is really short and really easy and comes in 12 minute segments so maybe this will make me prioritize that because I think it might be fun. As you're answering, I'm sort of thinking of my own work, which is I never imagined I would write books. I was not one of those people who thought I had a book in him. And I've always enjoyed writing short form for the same reason. I can sit down, I've got an idea, I can bang it out relatively quickly, and I'm done. And I really like short form writing. And I really don't like writing books. What we're doing today is short form. And this is, I think, one of the joys of podcasts. Podcasts, you know, every time anyone says, well, what are you aiming for when you write?

I'm trying to be half as funny as my friends when they're two glasses of beer down at 10 o'clock. You know, there's nothing funnier, The repeat jokes, the deep knowledge of character, the using little things that have happened during the day. And one of the things I love about podcasts is they're actually formalising something pretty close to friendship, pretty close to the spontaneous joy of what it means to hang out with people. And that, you know, my films aren't anything like as

funny as Simon Bell and Pierce Fletcher and Ellen Fielding when they're having a good time on a Sunday. Yeah, yeah. Can you tell me an early happy childhood memory? Weirdly, I remember going to see Jason and the Argonauts with my dad. That was absolutely fantastic. The cinema outside, they had one of those, a really tall pylon with neon that went up like 100 yards in a different movie. And I remember the smell of the popcorn. And I remember just from the moment it started, that absolute feeling that I was going to be happy the whole time. And then at the end, my dad was going to buy me a hot dog. I think it was the certainty of joy. How often do you get that?

How often do you enter a situation and know, I'm going to be, I absolutely know nothing can go wrong. That's the problem with strangers. You know, that's why you should hang out with people you know, because something can go wrong with a stranger. You'll offend them. They'll turn out to not agree with you. But should I tell you the most important, strangely, memory of my childhood? I don't know if this is relevant to you, but it's incredibly specific.

So in 1967 or 68, there was a famine in Biafra. And I remember my mum gathering us around the dining room table and saying, we are not going to celebrate Christmas this year. Or we are, but we're not going to spend any money. So no presents and baked beans on toast with scrambled eggs for Christmas lunch. And we're just going to take all the money that we could have spent on that and we're going to send it to these people who are dying for lack of food. The real memory is what a great Christmas day we had because we didn't have to wash up. No one was tense or angry. We got to watch Christmas Top of the christmas top of the pops which was always

on during christmas lunch and so you had to miss your favorite tv program of the year maybe that's the same message of the joy of the ordinary but i sometimes wonder when i think why do i do comic relief and all this stuff i wonder if it was like if my mum just short-circuited things and said, you can do good stuff and still be happy, and we can do it in 5 Godwin Road in Folkestone. You don't have to be working for Save the Children to change things. I find more of a pattern in the story you told of going to the movies, Jason and the Argonauts. The language you used, I was offered guaranteed joy for these two hours. The ceremony of it all, being with my dad, that I knew there's a beginning,

middle, and end, and I could leave the world behind for just this guaranteed moment of joy. And I've heard you, the way you talk about your films, and the fact that you make rom-coms, and most men are forced to watch them and discover that they're actually wonderful. But what we're offering is these moments of guaranteed joy. And if you talk about you would much rather spend time with friends than strangers because you're offered moments of guaranteed joy. And if you talk about what stands out about the Vicar of Dibley and the Mr. Bean, it's that you were with people and it was moments of guaranteed joy

where the other stuff was arduous and hard. And I think this is sort of what you do. That's quite profound, Simon. And even comic relief. It's a moment of guaranteed joy with a serious subject. And that's the point you're making, which is it doesn't really matter what's going on in the world. Even if you're dealing with extreme poverty and extreme famine, that you can still have moments of guaranteed joy along the journey.

And I think that's what you do for us. That's what you do for the world, Richard Curtis. When you show up and your name is attached to something, for the most part, we are offered moments of guaranteed joy before we walk in the room. And that's why we show up. And in some way, shape or form, you are become your father. We are little Richard Curtis and you are your dad taking us all to see Jason the Argonaut. Well, that's a very sweet thing to say.

And I mean, I'm just thinking about how the movies take a lot of work and how much pop music I use, which is, of course, the other thing. You sit down, you put on a record and you know, I'm going to be happy for this time. And I've used that a lot. And it's familiar. That's a lovely thought. And thank you for that.

We talked about why not do more Vicar of Dibleys and Mr. Beans because they're short and easy. And I think the answer is, is the hard work that you put into your films and the years of your life that you give to each one, I think is worth it because of the guaranteed joy that you offer your audience. And that lives on a lot longer than however long it takes you to make a film. Yeah. If all you took into account in life was your own pleasure, I actually have one or two friends who do that and they haven't, you know, in the outside world achieved a lot, but I really learned from them that they just are relishing the day. But I don't think it's a human right

to be personally happy. I don't think it's a right. I think that life is a real mixed bag. And I think that some achievements, as you say, take hard labor labor the idea that anyone should think I should be happy in my relationship in my work yeah in the world all the time is just foolish and a tiny bit dangerous because if you're in a relationship and you think why am I not happy now well maybe because the other person needs more or they're having a tough time.

It would be a shame if people felt they were owed permanent joy. They should have access to it. I think the idea of struggle, we've sort of demonized it a little bit. You know, we've used the internet and everything to make everything as easy and seamless and you don't have to lift a finger and you don't have to do anything. But I think human beings derive joy and satisfaction when we input effort for something that we think is worth it. Where something is awful is a lot of effort, and it wasn't worth it. But if you're contributing to something bigger, and in your case, like I said, there's guaranteed joy for a two-hour period in whatever life you're living.

My sister watches Notting Hill every single year. I recommend 500 Days of Summer, The Big Sick, Like Crazy, and The Worst Person in the World. These are very good films. I'll tell her. I think she should move on. But I'm very grateful. This is lovely. This has been, you know what this has been?

This has been an hour of guaranteed joy. The thing is, all I've got is chat. You know, I can't remember any jokes. I think maybe that's the reason I took up comedy. I can't remember any jokes. I have to write it myself. That's very sweet of you to say. You have a tremendously enthusiastic and passionate

public when they say well i just watched this what kind of things are they saying that was clever or um shouldn't he get a haircut or what's the tenor of the i should get a haircut by the way what's the tenor of people's reactions? What are they looking for? Do you think? Or is it just the joy of company? What I live for is when somebody says that was inspiring. That's what I'm trying to do in the world. I'm trying to inspire people to do what inspires them. And when I've done a book, or when I've done a podcast, or I've done an interview, I've done a TED talk, or whatever it is, whatever I've done, if somebody comes up and says, oh, that was entertaining, or that was interesting, I'm always like, oh, thank you. But when somebody says that was inspiring, that fills my bucket. We called this a bit of optimism.

We started in the middle of COVID because there was a lot of doom and gloom. And I wanted to point out that there were lovely people doing lovely things and I love my friends. And it started off me just interviewing my friends because because I just love my friends. And I wanted other people to experience the joy I get. I didn't want to be selfish with the time that I get with these amazing people. And a lot of them were unknowns. It's like, I'm not going to interview everybody I know who's in the public eye. I didn't care about that. They were just good people. And we kind of stuck with that theme, which is I just want to interview, talk to good people. And that's what it is. It's a bit of optimism. That's exactly what it is. Because I think everything we've been talking about, if you can see a bit of optimism, if you can have a bit of optimism, you can sort of appreciate the

little things in life. I can face the horrors of the world. I can face the difficulties of my day. I can face the challenges of my job if I'm in a better state of mind. And that's what I think these moments of guaranteed joy are designed to do. To tune out to watch an episode of Mr. Bean or Blackadder or watch two hours of a film and then go back to your family or your work. You'd be like, no, I got this. I got this. This is easy. All I want to do is be inspiring.

I will just say- I think you've done it. I just want to say one simple observation about good deeds, as it were, which is that the sorrows in our own lives are very intractable. And all of us have someone, something in our life, be it illness, be it illness in a friend or someone you love. I think that being mental health issues, they're really hard.

I mean, in my family, we have wrestled and not won quite a few times. And I think that it's possible to think the world's impossible. But all I'd say after my 30 years in comic relief is there are miracles of change. A vaccine for a fatal disease does cost 17 cents. It just does.

A malaria net does cost two dollars. So unbelievably, even though, as it were, I couldn't save my sister's life, even though when my dad got sick, it was years. And you would think with money and power, you could do something. The truth of the matter is anyone who gives time or a little bit of cash on the other side of life, it can be utterly and shockingly transformative. So I suppose my inspiring thought is, if you've got an instinct to give away a bit of money, give away time, it's shocking how much we can change other people's lives, no matter how hard ours are. Amen to that.

I may have said this, but I really want to underscore it. I think if we go through life where it's only drudgery and it's only hardship, and we struggle to see any light and brightness, our ability to give to another is diminished. You're in mud. I feel in mud. And I can't think of giving 17 cents

to somebody for their vaccine. My mind can't even go there. And if I can giggle for a few minutes, or I can disconnect from life for half an hour or an hour and a half, all of a sudden that levity and lightness, I can see that I can give for others. that I can give for others. And I think that it is because of the work that you do and it is because of the work of those who make us happy and allow us to experience a period of guaranteed joy that lays the foundation for acts of service. And if it weren't for those moments of guaranteed joy,

I think we would all be selfish bastards. And we're not. So hooray for that. I'm going to ask to come come can i come back in two years and i'm just gonna be so inspiring simon you're just gonna not you're just not gonna believe it but you're all the people who listen are gonna say god that guy was so inspiring i would love that well i'll see you on valentine's day 2025 yeah With some new inspiration. Thank you so much,

Richard. This has been truly so fun. I hope I see you very soon. Lots of love. Bye. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like to learn more about the topic you just heard, please check out the Optimism Library at simonsenik.com, where you can get access to

more than 35 undemanded classes about leadership, culture, purpose, and more. Until then, take care of yourself. Take care of each other.