Notting Hill

Notting Hill is a writer's film. Richard Curtis, who won an Emmy (27 August 2006) for The Girl in the Cafe, is credited with writing great comedies. He turned director with 'Love Actually'.

SYNOPSIS: Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) is the world’s most famous movie star. Her picture has been plastered on the cover of every magazine, and every time she makes a move, the entire world knows about it.

William Thacker (Hugh Grant) owns a travel bookstore. His business is stagnant, he has the roommate from hell, and since his divorce, his love life is completely non-existent. For both, something or someone seems missing.

And when Anna and William’s paths unexpectedly cross in the eclectic neighborhood of Notting Hill, romance is the last thing on their minds. The Couple comes to face the ultimate question: can two people fall in love with the whole world watching?

PolyGram Films and Working Title Films present Notting Hill, the charming romantic comedy which proves that love can spring from even the most unlikely of circumstances.

Notting Hill reunites he talents of screenwriter Richard Curtis and producer Duncan Kenworthy, who previously collaborated on Four Weddings and a Funeral. Directed by Roger Michell (Persuasion), Notting Hill is executive produced by Tim Bevan, Richard Curtis and Eric Fellner, with Michael Coulter, B.S.C. (Sense And Sensibility) serving as director of photography, Stuart Craig (The English Patient) as production designer, original music by Trevor Jones (In The Name Of The Father), costumes designed by Shuna Harwood (The Land Girls) and editing by Nick Moore (The Full Monty).

RICHARD CURTIS: He was born in New Zealand and began writing comedy after leaving Oxford University in 1978. His first job on television was writing for all four series of the BBC’s Not The Nine O’Clock News, which led to the Blackadder series, and won awards both in America and the UK.

Curtis went on to stage to do two West End comedy revues and write a stage adaptation of Don Quixote for the Actors Touring Company. He followed this with his first film screenplay, The Tall Guy, which was directed by Mel Smith and starred Jeff Goldblum, Emma Thompson (in her film debut) and Rowan Atkinson.

His second film Four Weddings and a Funeral, starring Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell, was directed by Mike Newell and released in March 1994. The film won a French Cesar, an Australian Academy Award and the BAFTA for Best Film. The screenplay also won the Writers' Guild Award and the Evening Standard Comedy and London Critics Awards and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. This was followed with Bean, which was co-written by Robin Driscoll and directed by Mel Smith.

Back on television, Curtis and Atkinson created Mr. Bean, and have continued to work with the popular character.

Curtis has been the recipient of numerous accolades, including the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition, he is co-founder and vice-chairman of British Comic Relief, the organization for which he has co-produced six nights of Comic Relief for the BBC since 1987 and has so far raised over $200 million.

Filming on location in West London and at Shepperton Studios for Notting Hill began on April 17 1998, marking the beginning of the second stage of the filmmakers’ journey from script to screen. Like many good ideas, it had taken time to evolve.

Screenwriter Richard Curtis says, "When I was lying sleepless at nights I would sometimes wonder what it would be like if I just turned up at my friends’ house, where I used to have dinner once a week, with the most famous person at that time, be it Madonna or whomever. It all sprang from there. How would my friends react? Who would try and be cool? How would you get through dinner? What would they say to you afterwards? That was the starting point, the idea of a very normal person going out with an unbelievably famous person and how that impinges on their lives."

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