Although London’s romantic side is often overshadowed by its bistro- and brasserie-filled Parisian neighbor, the British city is full of ways to woo a significant other. A walk along the Thames. Following in Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts’ footsteps in Notting Hill. Recreating the opening of Love, Actually as you land at Heathrow. But the restaurant scene, in particular, is replete with enticing romantic opportunities of all price points and cuisines. Whether you’re looking to wow someone with a Michelin-starred meal or to cuddle up in the corner of a neighborhood spot, London has a culinary offering for every type of date night.
Classics like Clos Maggiore and Andrew Edmunds draw crowds of two for good reason, thanks in part to their amorously inclined atmospheres. New London restaurants, like Noisy Oyster and One Club Row, are more contemporary and hip, but no less suited to a night out with your partner. Some places are best for first or second dates, while others are ideal for long-time lovers. And it doesn’t have to be Valentine’s Day or an anniversary to make these meals worthwhile—many are perfect for any random evening you happen to have free. Wherever you go, be sure to make plans in advance, as Londoners tend to book early and frantically.
EXCLUSIVE: It was a swell way to spend an evening. The champagne (and elderflower cocktails) flowed as did witty banter. At the center of it all was the imposing figure of Anthony Jones, “Agent Jones” as director Richard Eyre impishly called him, who has been like a human shield – all six foot four, probably more, of him, for his powerful array of clients including the likes of Alan Bennett, Mike Leigh, Richard Curtis, and Nick Cave, to name but a few.
Jones, 85, has retired after a career as a publishing executive and a fabled writers agent that has spanned, by his count, sixty years, and his colleagues at United Agents fêted him Wednesday night with a splendid soirée at BAFTA headquarters on Piccadilly. There was bubbly, inventive finger food such as pop -in-the-mouth steak and chips canapés, sushi, and parmesan potato puff creations. And for a blissful few hours there was no wailing over Netflix, Paramount and Warner Bros. Bliss.
Much was made of the fact that Jones turned breviloquence into an art form; one that often led to a couple of zeroes being added on to the figure being haggled over in a negotiation. Silence can indeed be golden.
L/R Nichola Martin and Anthony Jones. Baz Bamigboye/Deadline
True to form, Jones was brief in his own remarks to the packed crowd that included a lineup of clients, producers, directors, writers, friends and partners from United Agents and what looked to me to be one of the biggest gatherings of London agency bigwigs seen in an age.
“All I’ve wanted to say to you lot,” Jones said addressing guests “is thank you very much for giving me a seriously good life.”
His esteemed clients, he added, “are being passed on to – thank God – really good younger agents.”
St John Donald, United Agents’ managing director, said: ”I’ve worked with him for only 35 of his 60 years but I hope that qualifies me to say a few, very few words about him, knowing as I do his limitless patience and his love for long, preferably inaudible speeches.”
Donald hailed Jones as “the foremost agent of his generation …meticulous, industrious, ruthless, but also pragmatic. It’s no exaggeration to say on behalf of my fellow agents, that without him many of us would not be working together such has been the draw of his reputation and personality.”
The executive was warming up for the night’s best zinger. “What, perhaps you do not know of the man who manages to weaponize silence as a negotiating tactic,” – a line that had the crowd in stitches – “is that as a colleague, Anthony is generous to a fault. He is never happier than when celebrating the success of a colleague for having discovered some new or interesting work. He delights in the success of everyone he works with. This, you may be surprised to learn,” Donald said, pausing briefly then adding dryly, “is not a characteristic universally true of agents.”
Jones, Donald continued, “also never sees a distinction between art and money. That is to say, if he thinks something is good he backs it and then sells the hell out of it. So here is Anthony’s gift to us all – you don’t have to choose between being good, classy or successful, as he’s managed to be all three.”
Richard Curtis walked to the mic and quipped: “I’m only going to say a few words because he’s a man of few words.”
Nick Cave (left) and Richard Curtis. Image: Baz Bamigboye/Deadline
The screenwriter idly wondered whether others “found him chatty, chatty, chatty,” although few if any in the room could ever accuse Jones of being loquacious.
One of Curtis’s favourite reflections on their relationship “is the simplicity of his reaction to the three films of ours that turned out to be the most successful.”
Curtis recalled that when Jones read the first script “he came back with a lavish critique.” “I think I can sell it.” The second one, his reaction was, “Quite fun.” And the third went absolutely overboard with, “Not what I expected.”
The famed writer merrily wondered whether Jones “has been as detailed to all the rest of you?”
Curtis didn’t name titles during his tribute. Later, however he spelt them out for Deadline: “Four Weddingsand a Funeral was the ‘I think I can sell it.’ Notting Hill was “quite fun” and Love Actually was ‘Not what I expected.’ Those are the three I remember. He was my agent through all my TV years as well. Not the Not the Nine O’Clock News but I joined him when I was doing Blackadder and the big triumph, there was all the deals he did on VHS cassettes because for the first time ever, people who wrote in television could make money because we used to be paid so meekly by the BBC… Fawlty Towers did it, and we did it and Anthony was ahead of that curve.”
But, let me get back to what else Curtis regaled guests with – it was standing room only, by the way. Must’ve been 250 or so in attendance.
“When we first met to see if he was the man for me and I was the man for him, he specifically selected a restaurant where we sat next to each other on a banquette because he said it would be too awful to have to sit opposite each other and talk to each other,” Curtis said, as Jones stood offstage seemingly hating every minute of it. Every once in a while, a smile would emerge, then he’d quickly wipe it away.
“It was like being in a railway carriage,” Curtis continued. “Just some silence. And then once in a while, if it would occur to us, we would casually turn to each other and say what occurred to us…”
Curtis looked up from his jotted notes and observed that Jones “has been by turn, sensible, ruthless, greedy and cunning, but always polite.”
Chuckling, Curtis said: “This may not be true for many of you but every house I live in, every holiday I go on, every child I educated: they are the children, houses and holidays that Anthony made for them. I owe him more than I can say. I’m definitely going to send him my next screenplay in the certainty that his reaction to this one would be: ‘I wouldn’t bother if I were you’.”
In conclusion he jested: “Anthony has great elegance, great charm, no body fat, a spooky resemblance to George Martin, and exquisite indifference to both success and failure. And, indeed, an uncanny ability to be paused in conversations so long that the people he’s negotiating with… make a better offer just to keep the conversation going… a spectacular blessing to all of us. He has been my real friend, my rock, my most passionate advocate and, I think everyone will agree, the best possible agent ever.”
There were cheers, and I detected some tears as Jones turned the final page of his illustrious career.
Timothée Chalamet was in the theater down the hall being interviewed on stage about all things Marty Supreme by Daily Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin. As much as I admire both Mr. Chalamet and his super new movie (it’s a wee bit long), I wanted to remain in the room with Anthony Jones because a legendary agent doesn’t retire everyday.
L/R Ruth Young and Lindy King. Baz Bamigboye/Deadline
I couldn’t keep up with all of the guests but these are just a few of the people I spotted: Nicholas Hytner, Duncan Heath, Ruth Jackson, Maureen Vincent, Guy East, Tor Belfrage, Ruth Young, Lindy King, Dallas Smith, Judy Daish, Olivia Homan, Danielle Walker, Andrew Eaton, Jonathan Cavendish, Richard Eyre, Sue Birtwistle, Gabby Tana, Alison Owen, Giles Smart, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Kirk Whelan-Foran, Jonny Geller, Andy Harries, Hilary Salmon, Sue Vertue, David Parfitt, Kevin Loader, Ray Connolly, Peter Bennett-Jones, Kenton Allen, Michael Kuhn and Nick Cave.
For those who didn’t think (or believe it possible) that there was such a thing as a “Coachella rom-com,” The Idea of You is here to fill this apparent void. And, although the book of the same name it’s adapted from, written by Robinne Lee and released in 2017, doesn’t involve Coachella, but rather, a concert at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, the same general premise of the “meet-cute” in question is still there. Though, for whatever reason, co-writers Michael Showalter (who also directed) and Jennifer Westfeldt (known for Kissing Jessica Stein and being Jon Hamm’s ex) thought it would be better to make that happen within the context of Coachella, an increasingly vexatious, overpriced music festival that, once upon a time, a woman like Solène Marchand (Anne Hathaway) never would have felt comfortable attending, let alone as a chaperone to her daughter, Izzy (Ella Rubin), and her friends, Zeke (Jordan Aaron Hall) and Georgia (Mathilda Gianopoulos). After all, “VIP culture” at the festival wasn’t a thing until at least after Madonna performed in April of 2006 (as many stickers at the time touted, “Madonna Killed Coachella”). Once that shift occurred, for those with the means, “there [was] no real roughing it at Coachella anymore,” as a 2015 L.A. Times article pointed out. And certainly not for a well-to-do, “middle-aged” white woman.
Fortunately, it’s not as though the entire movie takes place within this presently bourgeois context (such an attempt would make for an even worse storyline). It’s only for about twenty minutes that the first act setup centers on Coachella. An act wherein, initially, Solène resigns herself to a lonely weekend of camping (though, in the book, it’s presented as an artist’s retreat in Ojai). Alas, as her ex-husband, Daniel (Reid Scott), is known for doing, he completely ruins her plans (just as he did when he divorced her for a younger woman named Eva [Perry Mattfeld]) by showing up to her house with Izzy and co.—after she already dropped them off at his—and asking if she can drive them there instead now that he’s had an Important Work Thing come up. So, he pleads, why not relish the VIP tickets he shelled out for him and their daughter? Along with the meet-and-greet package he bought for Izzy so that she could interact with boy band August Moon. A band she hasn’t been into since junior high, but such is the out-of-touchness of her father in terms of paying close attention to the ways in which she’s growing up at a rapid pace. As most teenagers do (especially now). Which brings up one of numerous key differences in the book: Izzy/Isabelle actually is still very much an August Moon fangirl. With regard to this detail, it helps that, in the book, she’s twelve…as opposed to being seventeen in the movie. Isabelle’s age in Robinne Lee’s version of the story also raises the stakes much higher in terms of Solène feeling responsible for her child’s emotional well-being. Because by the time kids are in their late teens, that ship has sailed.
Indeed, one of the many heavy-handed expositions that Showalter and Westfeldt emphasize in their screenplay adaptation is how much more involved and caring Solène is as a parent than Daniel. Even though she, too, has her own successful career to juggle: running a gallery in Silverlake. A noticeable neighborhood shift from the book’s setting of Culver City. But Silverlake is just so much “hipper” for the purposes of the camera…even if the majority of shooting took place in Georgia (namely, Atlanta and Savannah). This is perhaps a more overt way in which The Idea of You as a film reveals just how much it skimps on things. Including making an actual statement about the way older women are treated when they date younger men in comparison to the inverse of that: older men with younger women. Sure, there are some errant, overwrought lines delivered—like Izzy telling Solène, “The people on the internet that are picking you apart are disgusting. It’s ‘cause you’re a woman and it’s ‘cause you’re older than him [thanks for spelling it out]”—but, by and large, the message about double standards gets lost in this becoming a movie about catering to a forty-something female fantasy. The idea, not of “you,” but of still being appealing to much younger man.
Among the generation about to enter Anne Hathaway’s age bracket, this is more of a concern than it ever was in the past (likely as a result of fewer women settling for “fading into the background” once they’ve reached “a certain age”). And also, perhaps, more of a moot point. Mainly because, if you have the money, it’s never been easier to appear younger than you truly are, with Samantha Jones’ prophecy of “mani/pedi/Botox” being totally normalized at this point. Then there is the recent “joke” (read: accurate assessment) about how millennials are looking younger than run-ragged, “overstressed” (a.k.a. overstimulated, visually) Gen Z. With millennials actually favoring a younger-looking style (see: Lana Del Rey’s coquette aesthetic or Paris Hilton’s puerile butterfly wings) as Gen Z actively ages their skin with hyper-use of glycolic acid-packed skin products that will sooner (rather than later) have the reverse effect on their complexion that these face washes and exfoliants are meant to have on non-teen skin.
Solène, being born to French parents (though grandparents in the movie), clearly has to worry less about skin issues with such heritage. And it’s obviously benefited her in terms of coming across as Izzy’s “big sister” rather than her mother. That, and she had her daughter at a relatively young age (a much younger one in the movie)…sort of like Lorelei Gilmore.
Allowing herself to be swept away by Hayes’ British charm and wit (a decided false stereotype when it comes to British men), things escalate quite quickly, even though, in the current era, audiences might be hard-pressed to believe that a white boy band would have this much cachet. Because, if we’re being honest, the moment for white boy bands passed a while ago—at the latest, with One Direction (though, in truth, the heyday ended after Backstreet Boys and NSYNC). Even so, readers and viewers alike are meant to suspend their disbelief in terms of surrendering to the idea that it wouldn’t be a more BTS-inspired boy band that Izzy was obsessed with. Perhaps, undercuttingly, it speaks to a certain kind of racism in not wanting a white woman (or girl) to go for an Asian man. That would add an additional layer of “complexity” to the age gap element that audiences might just not be ready for.
The book itself does a better job of giving more dimension to the boy band, at least bestowing the fandom with a name…as all fandoms are now required to have in real life. In this case: “Augies.” Or “Augie Moms.” Solène doesn’t see herself that way at all, though fears she’ll be automatically pegged as one just because she got roped into the meet-and-greet. And yet, in the book, being able to observe Izzy’s excitement is both delightful and bittersweet, the latter sentiment addressed when she notes, “…it pained me to realize that Isabelle was now part of this tribe. This motley crew searching for happiness in five boys from Britain whom they did not know, could never know and who would never return the adulation.” That last part speaking to the intensity of parasocial relationships that has amplified in the twenty-first century with social media.
In the years when Solène would have been a teenager, the magnitude of that parasocial dynamic didn’t seem as strong. Not when it was all about posters on the wall as opposed to 24/7 internet stalking. To that end, there’s a moment in the book where Solène mentions having attended New Kids on the Block’s Magic Summer Tour (which went on from 1990 to 1992) and how, even then, she couldn’t fully let herself give in to the “thrall” that boy bands cause among tweens and teens.
Maybe that’s why she can’t resist giving way to it in the present, agreeing to go to lunch with Hayes in the book after he does a less stalker-y move by calling her gallery instead of just showing up like he does in the movie. As a matter of fact, the stalking aspect so often normalized in more “retro” rom-coms (e.g., Say Anything, 10 Things I Hate About You, Love Actually, etc.) is alive and well in The Idea of You, with audiences apparently expected to ignore it because of how “hot” and “charismatic” Hayes is. Besides, he’s a “star.” He’s used to simply going after what he wants and getting it. Applying that same ambition to a decidedly averse Solène. Averse not because she doesn’t want to tap that, but because she’s older, more pragmatic and should “know better.” She’s not driven by the same carnal lust as someone as hormone-driven as Hayes, who is twenty-four in the movie, but twenty in the book (maybe the writers thought those extra four years added onto his life would make it less scandalous). In both versions of The Idea of You, Solène is about to be forty. It’s mentioned so many times (complete with a birthday cake that reads: “Lordy Lordy Look Who’s 40”), it would be hard to forget.
And yet, as The Idea of You would have people believe, it seems that one needs to be a forty-year-old American woman in order to be on the same intellectual level as a twenty-four-year-old British man. Accordingly, the repartee between Hayes and Solène is meant to be the foreplay neither can resist consummating. At the lunch they have in the book, Solène ribs, “Something in the water in Notting Hill?” It’s a lunch during which they actually go out to eat as opposed to Solène taking Hayes back to her house. The mention of this London neighborhood brings up the automatic thought of 1999’s Notting Hill, amongst the few other movies in the rom-com genre to explore a romance through a lens in which one of the people in the relationship is world-famous (unfortunately, Marry Metried to rip off this concept with much less success). Specifically, an actress named Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) who ends up in her own unlikely tryst with a “normal” named William Thacker (Hugh Grant).
Another rarity in the genre, 2007’s Music and Lyrics, has Grant playing the famous—or erstwhile famous—one: Alex Fletcher, a former member of 80s boy band Pop! (an amalgam of Wham! and Duran Duran). He eventually falls for “normal” Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore), the woman tasked with watering his plants who he suddenly discovers is a brilliant lyricist. It might say something that there’s always a Brit involved in these types of relationships. Or that Hugh Grant is in both films in roles reversed. And yes, like Hayes, Alex is terrified that he’s just a joke, and that no one will ever see him as being capable of writing music that is anything beyond froth. Both Solène and Sophie assure each of their respective men that it isn’t true. Though neither man seems as keen to reciprocate much in the way of similar support.
For Solène, that’s particularly important, what with the ramped-up scrutiny she gets as a result of being much older than Hayes (though their age difference is pretty standard between many older men and younger women). Regardless, it’s evident that, despite all the obstacles—even when it comes to her daughter being mocked and harassed, too—Solène and Hayes will end up together. That’s the point of movies like this: to be reassured that, against all odds (even the highly specific odds stacked against an older, non-famous woman dating a young, very famous man), love will triumph. It’s what the likes of OG star-falls-for-normal movie Notting Hill taught us long ago. And yes, there are two ostensible nods to that movie in terms of the mise-en-scène that harkens back to Anna coming into the bookshop and delivering her famous line: “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.” The first is when Solène goes to the studio where Hayes is recording a song (inspired by her, duh) and asks if he’ll give her another chance, and the second is a the very end, when Hayes comes into her gallery after they agree to take a five-year break and see if they’re still “hooked” on each other once all the scrutiny has died down and Izzy has gotten old enough to not be in school anymore. Needles to say, they are.
Along the way to this inevitable moment, however, the rockiness of their obstacle-laden romance doesn’t come across as all that high-stakes the way it does in the book. Even so, while the movie might not top Notting Hill or Music and Lyrics (though, for some bizarre reason, the latter has a lower approval rating than this Hathaway movie), The Idea of You can at least take comfort in being a notch above Marry Me.
In the years since Love Actually was released, it’s been analyzed in hundreds of different ways. Not least of which is the shudder-inducing, super creepy stalker elements of Mark (Andrew Lincoln), who obsesses over Juliet (Keira Knightley) by way of, among other things, filming only close-up shots of her face during her wedding to his best friend, Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor). But something few people seem to glean with hindsight is how desperate not to be alone everyone comes across in this film. And at the core of what springs from Mark’s obsession with Juliet is the same thing that’s at the center of everyone else’s lovelorn angst, ultimately begat by the crushing loneliness not just of existence in general, but existence in the proverbial big city (London being one of the OGs of that classification).
The desperation is palpable within mere minutes of the film’s commencement, with the perennially randy Colin (Kris Marshall) trying to hit on every woman he comes into contact with (behavior, by the way, that continues to age quite poorly) at Harry’s (Alan Rickman) office as he passes out the sandwiches he’s delivering. In only a few short seconds, we see Colin oozing the desperation of someone who will settle for being with whoever might reciprocate his “feelings” a.k.a. his rapidfire flirtations. Alas, there are no takers, and won’t be until the end of the film, when, again, out of desperation, he goes to America in search of pussy before he becomes a totally scary incel (like Mark sort of already is). As a matter of fact, this is why his seemingly only friend, Tony (Abdul Salis), tells him, “Colin, you’re a lonely, ugly asshole. And you must accept it.” “Fortunately” for those in need of a progressing movie plot, Colin does not accept it at all, nor does any other character in the story.
This doesn’t mean, however, that others in the film are quite so desperate (though that doesn’t mean they don’t still fall under the category). Indeed, some are too grief-stricken to bother with fretting over the search for sex and/or romance. Namely, Daniel (Liam Neeson), whose own desperation emanates through the phone when he calls Karen (Emma Thompson)—a name that was still permitted use back in 2003—for the umpteenth time in search of comfort. So it is that he opens the conversation with, “Karen, it’s me again. I’m sorry. I literally don’t have anyone else to talk to.” The patheticness of that statement doesn’t move Karen enough to stay on the phone. Instead, she promises to call him back later when she’s not so busy talking to her daughter about how she got cast as the lobster in the nativity play.
Writer-director Richard Curtis then shows us another example of desperate love in the form of Sarah (Laura Linney), who works for Harry at his Fair Trade office. It’s Harry that feels obliged to take her aside and tell her to confess her love for Karl (Rodrigo Santoro), their “enigmatic chief designer.” Because it’s clear to everyone in the office that she’s loved him for the two and a half years (or “two years, seven months, three days and, I suppose, what? Two hours?”) she’s been working there. Their thinly-veiled romantic connection has that whiff of The Office (the real British one that begat the American one) in terms of the “sparks” that continuously fly between Tim and Dawn. Incidentally, Martin Freeman, who played Tim, appears as John in one of the less “meaty” plotlines about two body doubles a.k.a. nude stand-ins who fall in love while simulating sex on the set of a movie (long before the job of “intimacy coordinator” existed. Considering The Office ended in 2003, it’s telling that the office romance plotline of Love Actually would be so prominent, with everyone wanting things to pan out between Sarah and Karl the same way they wanted it to for Tim and Dawn (which it finally did after, what else, the Christmas special). Alas, the key difference between Dawn and Sarah is that the latter has a codependent, mentally ill brother that takes up all her time. Something that Karl very much realizes when he’s trying to, at last, consummate their simmering-turned-boiling attraction.
Some characters are, obviously, better at freely displaying their emotions (read: not repressing them like Sarah). Case in point, when Daniel starts openly sobbing, Karen says what everyone in the audience has been thinking about most of the characters: “Get a grip. People hate sissies.” She adds, “No one’s ever gonna shag you if you cry all the time.” Yet radiating sadness seems to be the key to “attracting a mate” in Love Actually, with one desperate person sensing the forlornness of another at every turn (in other words, “like attracts like”). This, of course, applies to the “love story” of Jamie (Colin Firth) and Aurélia (Lúcia Moniz), as the former arrives at his French cottage to retreat from the city that reminds him only of how his wife cheated on him with his brother. After opening up the windows in the house to “air it out,” Jamie sits at his typewriter (where he’ll inevitably try to write a cringe-y white man’s novel) and laments, “Alone again.” As though being alone is a fate worse than death, especially during the holiday season. Conveniently, though, Jamie is “bequeathed” with Aurélia as his house cleaner, helping Curtis’ evident aim to speak to the master-slave dynamic in male-female relationships.
This is also the case with the new prime minister, David (Hugh Grant) and his “biscuit and tea fetcher,” if you will, Natalie (Martine McCutcheon). Their love, too, is a case of “affection via proximity.” With every single one of the characters (except for, incidentally, Colin) being too lazy to go much outside of their comfort zone to “find someone” to “love.” Or at least someone to nuzzle up against in time for Christmas. This appears to be slutty Mia’s (Heike Makatsch) goal as well, apparently unable to seek (unmarried) dick outside the office either. Her relentless and shameless pursuit of Harry is, indeed, the exemplar of the desperation that loneliness can invoke. For while some would like to believe she merely wants to prove to herself that her “hotness” can get her any man she wants (even a man as boo’d up as Harry), seeing her strip down alone in her sad little room—having hoped the red lingerie she wore would be seen by someone other than herself—is the greatest indication of her loneliness. And if ever there was a movie that spoke to the Henry David Thoreau aphorism, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” it’s surely this one.
Faded and aging rock star Billy Mack (Bill Nighy), the true thread that ties every narrative together by constantly appearing on the radio or TV to promote his atrocious Christmas single, “Christmas Is All Around,” is arguably the most openly desperate of all. With nothing to lose, he doesn’t care how he sounds when he tells a radio interviewer, “When I was young and successful, I was greedy and foolish. And now I’m left with no one, wrinkled and alone.” That descriptor “alone” being, once more, the worst thing a person can be according to Love Actually. Even if they still feel alone with the person they make a mad dash for like it’s a game of musical chairs. This negative connotation surrounding the “horror” of being without a “better half” is also very much a sign of the times. With 00s ideologies increasingly coming across as being almost as retro as 50s ones.
To that end, it used to be that Love Actually was viewed as the ultimate “feel-good” rom-com set during Christmas. But with further reflection, it’s apparent that the majority of the characters in the movie are grasping for someone, anyone to make them feel even slightly less alone and/or less aware of their mortality. That, in the end, is the true “Christmas message” it gives. For the desire not to feel alone in life is never more heightened than at this time of year, with few seeming to pay attention to the old adage, “We’re all alone in our own head” no matter what we do. Which is precisely why the people in Love Actually are going insane. They can’t live up to the Jean-Paul Sartre warning, “If you are lonely when you’re alone, you are in bad company.”
In the film, Melissa McCarthy‘s character genie Flora develops a major crush on Cruise after going to a movie theater for the first time and seeing him in a Mission: Impossible film. This leads her to cover her bedroom walls with posters of the actor, as well as get a sweatshirt featuring Cruise’s face as a Christmas present from her new friend Bernard (Paapa Essiedu).
In an interview with People magazine, published online Wednesday, the Love Actually writer said they definitely had to ask Cruise for permission before filming.
“I mean, we asked him through his people,” Curtis explained. “I’m lucky enough to know Tom a bit. He’s always been very sweet to me. And we worked on a film for a while, which didn’t happen.”
After the Oscar-nominated writer learned that Top Gun: Maverick actor gave him the go-ahead, he said in response, “I don’t know whether it’s a favor to me and Melissa or whether someone in the mail room said, ‘This sounds okay.’ But it means that after all these years, I’ve at last made a Tom Cruise movie.”
Curtis noted that he was also “so thrilled” to be able to include a three-second clip of Mission: Impossible in the flick.
Genie follows Bernard, a workaholic man who enlists the help of magical genie Flora to help win his family back before Christmas.
As for several other jokes throughout the Sam Boyd-directed movie, the Notting Hill writer said McCarthy actually came up with some of them herself.
“When Melissa would think of a new funny joke, then she would do it, and that’d be great,” Curtis said. “But then, of course, you’ve gotta do it four more times. You’ve got to make sure you got it right. You’ve got to make sure you get it at the right speed from the right angle. So it’s always a mixture between kind of mischief and very conscientious behavior on movies.”
He added, “In my movies, you want it to be emotionally true at the same time as being silly. So [Melissa] went between being impish and just being a really proper, serious actor.”
“Christmas Actually,” a festive stage show curated by Richard Curtis (“Love Actually,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Notting Hill”), has unveiled its hosts and first tranche of guests.
The Christmas show will be hosted by Jayde Adams (“Greatest Days,” “Alma’s Not Normal,” “Strictly Come Dancing”) and Sanjeev Bhaskar (“Yesterday,” “Goodness Gracious Me”) and directed by Daniel Raggett (“Accidental Death of an Anarchist”). The first guests announced are Olivier award-winning musical theater star Miriam-Teak Lee (“&Juliet,” “Hamilton”) and musical comedy duo Flo & Joan.
Christmas classics featured in the show will include “Christmas, Baby Please Come Home,” “White Christmas,” “My Grown Up Christmas List” and “All I Want For Christmas.” The ensemble performers will be Marc Antolin, Elizabeth Ayodele, Stephan Boyce and Jamie-Rose Monk.
The variety show in support of Comic Relief promises a celebrity lineup performing live music, Christmas stories, poetry and comedy. “Christmas Actually” will help raise funds for the charity during the festive period with 5% of net profits being donated to Comic Relief. Curtis is co-founder of Comic Relief, and the charity has raised over £1.5 billion ($1.8 billion) to support organizations that support people trying to get by in the face of poverty and injustice in the U.K. and around the world since launching in 1985.
“Christmas Actually” will take place at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall from Dec. 7-11. The band will include Russell Bennett (trumpet), Adam Bourne (guitar), Elliot Davis (keys), James Gambold (drums), Charles Rothwell (saxophone) and Tom Sansbury (bass). The creative team for “Christmas Actually” will include set and costume designer Peter McKintosh, lighting designer Ben Rogers, assistant lighting designer Emily Darlington, sound designer Oscar Thompson, projection designer Duncan McLean and musical director Elliot Davis.
The show will also feature “brilliantly terrible” Christmas cracker jokes read by celebrities on screen, children’s hilarious letters to Father Christmas and an old-fashioned singalong. Further celebrity guests will be revealed imminently.
Holiday comedy “Genie,” written by Curtis and starring Melissa McCarthy, premieres on Peacock on Nov. 22.
