Richard Curtis reveals Love Actually almost had an LGBTQ+ storyline but it was ‘cut out’ as he shares what he would change about the Christmas hit

Richard Curtis has revealed that Love Actually almost featured an LGBTQ+ romantic storyline, but it was 'cut'.

The 67-year-old screenwriter is famous for writing the 2003 Christmas hit Love Actually, which follows eight different couples during the holidays.

But Richard has revealed that an additional LGBTQ+ storyline was originally written into the plot, but it was later removed from the film.

Richard has previously spoken about the lack of diversity in Love Actually and criticized his jokes about people's sizes in the film.

Now, talking to Katie Strick about the Love stories from London podcast, Richard admitted that he felt like he was “letting himself down” by removing the LGBTQ+ story from the final edit.

“There are things about Love Actually that I wish I had done,” Richard said while speaking on a Christmas episode of the podcast in aid of Comic Relief.

“If I had ten stories, yes, we would have some kind of LGBTQ story, but that got cut and I feel like I let myself down there.”

Richard went on to detail some more changes he would make to the film if he were writing it today, as he wanted to address the lack of diversity.

“The diversity issue is very different now and it would have been wonderful to make the film more culturally rich,” he said.

“To have had Hanukkah, to have had Diwali in there, I didn't focus on that. So I think if I did it again, it would have a wider distribution than the film does now.”

When asked whether he would now make a new version of Love Actually, Richard insisted he has no plans to remake the Christmas classic.

He explained, “I don't think I'm going to make another one because Love Actually was one of my films that was actually the closest to a disaster. Two months before it came out, it was an absolute mess. So I feel like I got lucky once, I don't want to risk it again.”

The film is now known for its interwoven storylines, but Richard revealed that the script was originally arranged in a much more linear fashion, before deciding it wasn't interesting enough.

He said: 'With all those stories it was very difficult to keep people interested. Originally I wrote the movie as A, B, C, D, E, F, G – I would have one part of the movie one after the other.

“But when I watched the movie, it was like I didn't really care about the stories. The moment you did something extra, you lost interest.'

“The final film is as if I took the original script and put it back together in a completely different order,” he added.

It's not the first time Richard has taken aim at Love Actually's lack of diversity and its jokes about women and people's sizes.

Last year, Richard admitted that Love Actually's lack of diversity now makes him feel 'uneasy' and 'a bit stupid'.

“There are things you would change, but thank God society is changing. So my film is bound to feel old-fashioned at some points,” he said.

Richard recently told how his activist daughter Scarlett, 28, made him realize that his jokes about women and people's sizes in the film were no longer funny.

At the Cheltenham Literature Festival earlier this year, the director told how he promised his daughter Scarlett never to make 'fat' jokes again.

In Love Actually, Martine McCutcheon's character Natalie – the Prime Minister's PA – was famously portrayed as the 'chubby' one and with a 'significant a**e'.

And in the 2001 adaptation of Bridget Jones's Diary — for which Richard wrote the screenplay — Renée Zellweger's character was described as having “tree trunk thighs.”

Richard has since opened up about how these jokes are no longer funny 20 years later, speaking while being interviewed by Scarlett.

According to The Times, he told the audience: “I remember how shocked I was five years ago when Scarlett said to me, 'You can never use the word 'fat' again,” he said.

“Wow, you were right. In my generation I called someone chubby (it was funny) – that was joked about. Those jokes aren't funny anymore.'

Richard has previously admitted that his children didn't like his jokes and said his films were starting to look like “historical documents.”

Speaking to Craig Oliver on his Desperately Seeking Wisdom podcast in January last year, the creator of The Blackadder and Mr Bean said: 'All my conversations with my kids now they don't like 20 per cent of my jokes because they think they old fashioned and somehow wrong.

“So I'm very interested in how a generation that grew up passionate, angry and pedantic about these issues can change things for the better.”

In addition to Scarlett, Richard shares children Jake, 26, Charlie, 22, and Spike with wife Emma Freud, whom he married this year after 33 years together.