Thanks. Pleasure.
Oh! Shit!
Oh, my God! Bugger! I'm so sorry.
Can I come in? Come in.
Well, great. Fantastic.
- Whoa! Oops! - [ Laughing ]
I think it's quite a good idea to write films...
about the sort of dreams that you have about ideal situations.
And I remember when I used to lie, uh, sleepless at nights,
I would sometimes think what it would be like
if I just turned up at my friend's house...
where I used to have dinner once a week...
with, as it were, the most famous, um--
whoever was the most famous person at that time,
be it Madonna or Princess Diana or Kylie Minougue.
- Hi. - Hi.
Hello, Anna... Scott.
Hi, guys. Oh, holy fuck.
And, um, it sort of sprung from there.
I used to think through this scenario-- how my friends would react,
who would try and be cool, who would fail to be cool.
Last film you did, what did you get paid?
Fifteen million dollars.
Right.
This is one of those key moments in life...
when it's possible you can be really genuinely cool, and I--
I'm going to fail just a hundred percent.
How you'd get through dinner, what they'd say to you afterwards, and, uh, uh--
So that was the starting point.
Very, very quickly. What are you doing here with Anna Scott?
Anna Scott? What, the film star? Yes! Shut up!
Shh! Oh, God!
Notting Hill is a kind of fairy story.
It's the fairy story of the princess and the pauper.
Though, in this case, it's the fairy story...
of the most famous film star in the world...
who stumbles into the pathetically inefficient bookshop...
of a character played by Hugh Grant.
Um, can I help you at all?
No, thanks. I'll just... look around.
And the film charts the relationship that develops...
between these two unlikely people.
Whenever you're asked the question about casting your film,
there's always a fiction that whoever you cast was always your first choice.
But I have to say,
Julia was the one and only person that we offered that part to.
When I was first told about it...
and given a brief description of it, I thought,
"That doesn't sound like something I wanna go off and do,
go off to England and leave my family to go be movie-star girl."
It sounded kind of boring.
And I read the script and was just--
from the very first page to the last page--
Loved every word of it. Thought it was delicious. Knew I had to do it.
She's intimidatingly famous for a start, but once you're over that--
which doesn't take too long, 'cause she's actually very silly--
uh, she's intimidatingly good.
She has the ability to burst into life...
like a firework when you say, "A ction. "
[ Grant ] She's very, very good with freshness.
You know how important it is to preserve the spontaneity in a performance.
And she knows that you've only got four or five takes in which you're
still spontaneous, and after that, you're just repeating yourself.
And she's very good at holding that back,
so she doesn't give it all in rehearsal or when you're lining up the cameras.
But as soon as there's real film going through the camera, uh, she pings.
The fame thing isn't really real, you know.
And don't forget, I'm--
I'm also just a girl...
standing in front of a boy...
asking him to love her.
And we cast, you know, arguably the most famous Hollywood film star...
to play the most famous Hollywood film star.
Why go to a star to play the unknown boy?
Wouldn't that be a bit odd?
Wouldn't it be much more enjoyable, say, to have Michael Smith,
somebody that--
But in the end, it's just-- We thought, no, you go with the talent.
Hugh is a real worker. He likes to do more and more takes.
He'll never say, "I don't wanna do another take."
He'll always go for another take...
just in case something odd or new or different or some nuance will change.
I was really impressed with how hard he worked...
and how, um, interesting...
he wanted to make every little moment.
He's one of the only actors that we've ever found...
who can really read Richard's lines, you know, perfectly.
It's sort of like an expression of Richard's inner rhythms.
That book's really not great.
Just in case, you know, browsing turned to buying.
Uh, you'd be wasting your money.
But if it's Turkey you're interested in,
um, this one, on the other hand, is very good.
I think the man who wrote it has actually been to Turkey, which helps.
Um, there's also a very amusing incident with a kebab.
It's in his character not to be awestruck,
not to go dumb...
and not to change his personality.
As somebody who's never met anyone famous before,
he finds it easy to operate with her,
and I think that she spots that, and that's what brings them together,
that he's actually a person who can cope with fame.
We all live in a media world.
We walk down the street and we see posters.
We have all of these images, these icons in our heads,
and we've tried to create, um, a setting...
where, uh, Julia's character, Anna Scott, is everywhere.
You know, she's releasing a movie, and posters on the streets,
the back of buses, everywhere he turns.
So having a love affair with a star is hard,
because if you break up, you're reminded of your loved one all the time.
You can't turn on the radio or the television or walk down the street...
without seeing-- I mean--
So that was interesting to us.
But also, I wanted her to be seduced by the normality of his life,
by the way that, in fact, all the friends, quite quickly,
reconcile themselves to who they are and open up their characters.
♪ Try as I may I can never explain ♪
♪ What I hear when you don't say a thing ♪
One of the things that we do is cast for a very long time.
I do think that, particularly in the smaller roles,
it is fantastic to see something which is a tiny joke--
a character who's probably called "angry old man" or "determined customer"--
suddenly turn into a wonderful person of flesh and blood.
And I also don't have a very visual imagination,
so, you know, um, I tend to see, um, stick person with big hair...
talking to stick person without big hair as man and woman.
Therefore, it is fantastic for me to see it fleshed out.
We wanted to test, as it were, to prove the script.
Richard feels that's a very valuable part of the writing process,
and at some point, hejust has to hear it read.
Um, and it is amazing how the good parts and the bad parts reveal themselves...
suddenly in the mouths of actors.
The great thing about a really good script and a really clever director...
is that you find yourself in a situation...
where even the tiniest part has been cast so precisely...
with, um, such a talented person,
that even the littlest moment in the movie...
becomes a really interesting moment that you'll remember.
Oh, my God. My flatmate. [ Doorknob Rattling ]
I'm sorry. There's no excuse for him.
Hey. Hi.
I'm just going in the kitchen to get some food.
Then I'm going to tell you a story
that'll make your balls shrink to the size of raisins.
Well, it's certainly not a help
to have this curious Neanderthal man around the house...
when the most famous actress in the world comes to stay.
You must be Spike.
Rhys is more crazy than you could ever imagine.
[ Reporters Shouting ]
And... really hard to work with Rhys, man,
because, you know, I had to be straight-faced all the time.
And it's one thing, the challenge of being straight-faced around Hugh,
which after a while I would-- just sort of got good at.
I became determined, you know.
But with Rhys, it's merely impossible...
not to just fall out of your chair,
because he's so funny and he's so outrageous.
How did I look? Not bad.
Not at all bad. Well-chosen briefs, I'd say.
Chicks love gray.
Nice firm buttocks.
And, fortunately, half the time I didn't know what he was talking about.
So I could just kind of, you know, "Okay."
But he's-- And he's sweet. He's dear.
He's dear, which doesn't really come across in his part...
how incredibly sweet he is,
because, you know, with his pants drooping down and all.
But he really is dear.
♪ Blue moon ♪
[ Michell ] It's rather like assembling a family...
when you're casting a group, a cabal of friends.
You have to cast a balance of qualities...
and of types and of sensibilities,
and I think we've got a very good variety of people...
who can realistically still live in the same world.
Well, my friends are quite an eclectic bunch,
uh, ranging from-- as is Notting Hill.
They're a kind of cross section of Notting Hill.
And, um, so you've got...
the relatively, um, well-off, professional Max and Bella-- one's a lawyer,
one's a banker-- who owns a nice, big house in the sort of posh part of town.
[ Curtis ] Tim McInnerny, who's playing Max.
I wanted to have someone who is buttoned-up,
who works in the city, who shouldn't be impressed.
And yet, all of those people really are, as it were, kittens underneath,
and I wanted to see his excitement just seeping through.
And I was very interested in the idea of taking someone like that...
who has a controlled emotional life...
and putting him in a big emotional situation...
because he's married to, um, Gina McKee, the character of Bella,
who's in a wheelchair-- has not been in a wheelchair long.
And I was very interested in how someone like that,
whosejob is not to show emotion,
would deal with and establish a proper relationship with his wife...
when things got complicated.
You've got my sister who's almost criminally inept at her job and very poor,
and it's her birthday, and she's a bit weird and always has been a bit weird...
but charming and delightful.
[ Curtis ] Honey, who's played by Emma Chambers,
is sort of the spirit of all that is free and young and Notting Hill,
and I wanted her to represent all the exuberance and excitement.
She just basically is her name, this character.
I wish I was like her. She's a honey.
She's a complete sweetie-pops with no malice...
and just giving and a huge heart.
Uh, then there's this other friend, Bernie, who works in the city...
and is not as bright as he should be for that job and is doing very bad.
He keeps losing millions of pounds...
and, um, is something of a sort of prat, but a very lovable prat.
Bernie's the last person to leave a party,
um, despite however much his hosts are yawning...
and talking about having to get the kids up early.
Bernie will just chat on into the night.
[ Curtis ] Throughout my career, I've enjoyed writing characters...
who aren't, um, that clever,
and Bernie started off as one of those.
But then, trying to three-dimensionalize him,
I just tried to imagine the kind of romantic life and needs...
of someone who strikes one initially as being just jolly...
and just funny and just not that bright.
So he doesn't do well in work and he doesn't do well in love,
and in some ways he's become the saddest character in the film.
But she said she wanted to go out with you.
- Yeah. - Well, that's nice.
What?
Well, you know,
anyone saying they wanna go out with you is pretty great, isn't it?
Oh, sod a dog, I've made the wrong decision, haven't I?
One of the great things about Richard Curtis's writing...
is that it's all done from the good, from the right,
from positive feelings.
So much modern comedy, I think, finds it easier to tear down,
to criticize, to damage, to be negative.
Much funnier to laugh at things or people.
Much harder, I think, to--
um, but much more rewarding,
as you laugh, to be reminded of the specialness of people...
or, uh, humanity or, um--
And I think Richard is almost unique, I think, in his ability to do that--
to make you-- to make your heart warm at the same time as you laugh.
I just wondered whether if Mr. Thacker realized...
he'd been... a daft prick...
[ Reporters Chattering ]
and got down on his knees and begged you to reconsider,
whether you would, in fact, then...
reconsider?
Yes, I believe I would. [ Reporters Chattering ]
Magic can happen. It can happen.
Your fantasies can be realized. Your dreams can come true.
That's something that, uh, everyone needs to hear once in a while.