Richard Curtis on Four Weddings: ‘I don’t know how fully I thought through Andie MacDowell’s character’

The film has topped a poll for the most rewatchable film. Its director, Mike Newell, sees why. So why would Curtis, who wrote the script, rather rewatch Elf?

Richard Curtis rarely rewatches Four Weddings and a Funeral. There isn't a natural circumstance where I say: I'll tell you what I'll do for the next two hours, see one of my films.'" Partly, it is knowing the punchlines. Partly, it is being a bit busy. On the wall of Curtis's Notting Hill home office (stucco fireplace, neon art, whopping clock), just out of frame of his laptop camera, are six Post-it reminders of pre-Christmas tasks. Wrap presents? Make pud? Nope: rewrite a film, cast an online panto, appoint a new CEO for Comic Relief. Et cetera.

Anyway, for those of us a bit less pressed, things are different. Four Weddings - in which Hugh Grant's stuttering bachelor, in a series of morning suits, woos Andie MacDowell - was the runaway winner in a new, slightly strange poll to find Britain's most rewatchable movie. In a list of 50 films co-curated by the British Film Institute and Google Pixel, the tale of Charles and Carrie took 49% of the votes, with Skyfall on 37% and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on 33%.