READER’S DIGESTJULY 2019 • 23and started to get that cockiness.
We said yeah, we’re going to make
a rom-com. We’re going to make it
with Ewan McGregor—because he
was in Trainspotting and Shallow
Grave—and we’re going to put him
with the biggest star in the world,
which at the time was Cameron Diaz.
That was a film called A Life Less
Ordinary. We shot it in Utah, and I
remember when I came back home
after shooting, I got sent this script
called Notting Hill. I read it over
Christmas, and I remember
thinking—and this is the God’s
honest truth—Now that’s a rom-com.
I don’t know what we’ve made, but
that is a proper rom-com. I thought
it was brilliant. So, I suppose this
is my first rom-com in a way,” he
explains, allowing himself a self-
deprecating chuckle.
“Richard Curtis is very
underestimated as a writer. Because
he works in romance and comedy,
he’s not ascribed the status that
writers who work in other genres
are. But he’s Britain’s poet laureate
of romantic comedy. Just look at the
body of work, look at Blackadder. It ’s
phenomenal writing.”There’s something fascinating
about the endurance of The Beatles’
popularity—a fascination that
clearly gripped Richard in writing
and Danny in directing—the way
their music is sewn into the fabric
PICTORIAL PRESS LTD / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO of British culture. For anybody born
explains. “If you always
have that as your starting
point—and I’ve been lucky
and had it a number of
times—it’s a beautiful
way to begin. There’s that
old saying, ‘jump and the
net will appear’ and I’ve
always believed in that. If
you’re lucky enough to work
in the creative industries
then it’s especially true
because there’s something
about that leap that’s
good for the imagination.
You should trust that the
imaginative powers of
what you’re responding
to will—two years later—
speak to [your audience] in
the same way.”
The director is poetic
yet practical when talking
about his medium. One
minute he will utter something
beautiful—“what’s so extraordinary
about cinema is that it interferes with
time, it’s a timeline fracture. There’s
no other artform, there’s nothing
else in life that allows you to stop
time”—and the next he’s all logistics,
talking marketing strategy and the
extortionate amount Sony charges for
use of Beatles tracks.
He cringes a little when I ask if he’d
consider Yesterday his first foray into a
purely rom-com genre.
“After we made Trainspotting, we
decided that we could do anything,