Today in the UK, it’s Red Nose Day – the beloved annual fundraising campaign to end child poverty – and we’re all smiles to be joined by its legendary organizer, Richard Curtis, the co-founder and vice chair of Comic Relief. Many will know him for his screenwriting and directing credits on some of the most memorable comedies of our time, like Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’ Diary and Love Actually. But Curtis’ superpower isn’t just generating laughs – it’s convening the most brilliant minds in entertainment and business around a movement. We talk to him about how he’s made the campaign so successful and the iconic red nose’s new look.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good Company is a production of iHeartRadio. What we've tried
to do and well, I wish that companies that everybody
could think is what's my particular superpower and what could
I do? Hi? I'm Michael Casson. Welcome to Good Company,
(00:20):
where I'll explore how marketing, media, entertainment and tech are intersecting,
transforming our lives and the way we do business at
a breakneck speed. I'll be joined by some of the
greatest business minds at strongest leaders who will share how
they've built companies from the ground up or transform them
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a lesson or two along the way. It's all good.
(00:43):
Red Nosed Day is an annual fundraising campaign organized by
Comic Relief to end child poverty throughout the world. The
organization funds programs that help keep children safe and healthy
while providing them with a support and education. This year,
Red Day will take place on March seventeenth, and as
an excellent opportunity to get involved and raise awareness for
(01:05):
the incredible organization. Today, I am particularly excited to welcome
a legendary screenwriter, director, and the co founder and vice
chair of Comic Relief, Richard Curtis, Richard, welcome and thank you.
Michael is so great to be here. I already have
to slightly put you right because Mark seventeen, well not
(01:27):
put you right, and you up. March seventeen is the
UK Red Nose Day, and then Red Nose Day USA
is in May. In fact, well there you go. It's
kind of like Mother's Day. The UK has Mother's Day
in March and the US has Mother's Day in May.
I learned that, so see every day is Mother's Day.
Michael is there? Oh God, yes, so Richard. March seventeenth,
(01:51):
I'm glad you clarified is Red Nose Day in the
UK and May twenty fifth is Red Nose Day in
the US. That's right. And it's a season because we
start selling the red noses in Walgreens at the beginning
of April, and lots of different things happened during that
time online events and other things on sales, so it's
a kind of it's a season of goodwill, is how
(02:14):
I like to pick about for those of our listeners
who are not familiar with Comic Relief or Red Nose Day,
and God knows, there can't be that many people are
not familiar with those two concepts or those two events.
Can you talk about it from inception? But and how
do you decide where the money goes? You know, you've
got so many worthy recipients organizationally, and then of course
(02:37):
the flow from the organization to the individuals. What's the criteria,
what's the vetting process you go through to determine how
you distribute the cash? Well, the wonderful answer is, it
hasn't got that much to do with me. These are
really serious issues. You know, in the USA, we're giving
money to kids at home and kids all over the world,
(03:02):
and you need real experts working on it all the time.
So what we do is we've got a grants group
within the organization and they're really trying to look out
for what's going to keep kids healthy, safe, educated, empowered.
And we started in the USA by giving money to
(03:22):
some big, sort of blue chip organizations like Boys and
Girls Club and Save the Children and United Way. And
we still really work with some of these big, brilliant organizations,
but we also sort of go down into the grassroots
and try and find organizations that are small, brilliant new ideas,
(03:44):
you know, and the idea always is to cover both bases.
I'm desperately keen that if someone buys a red Nose
that they should really believe it's instantly going to make
a difference. So, you know, we're dealing with food poverty abroad,
we're often dealing with sort of dramatic health which can
be helped by a malaria net or something like that.
But then we're also sort of addressing the root causes
(04:06):
of poverty, trying to find out what causes those things.
Really give kids an opportunity early on in their lives
to get a better education, better opportunity not let their
health get messed around in a way it's going to
affect them then for the rest of their lives. So
the truth of the matter is it's a huge group
of real experts led by a very talented group amongst
(04:29):
us who are trying to get to you know, sometimes
it's quite a bit of money in one small organization
that helps a thousand people, but then sometimes it's a
massive broad spread of just giving money to Feeding America
and they'll just feed thousands upon thousands of families. So
I think we've helped something like seventeen million kids at
(04:52):
home and around the world since we started here. Well,
you're talking about the start, first of all. That's an
astounding statistic and something to be applauded. I want to
go back. You know. Look, you're a famous guy. And
when we first had the pleasure to meet, I told
you I was with a group of my British friends
some time ago and we had a Richard Curtis week.
(05:15):
We were together on a holiday and all my British
friends said, we're doing four weddings in a funeral notting
Hill Bridget Jones love actually night after night, almost to
the point I got sick of you at some point.
I'm kidding, honestly, that's like a big boat of pasta
every night. You should be careful of that. I'm telling you.
The calories were incredible, but so was the pleasure. But
(05:38):
I would list as many would those movies in my favorites.
What led you to kind of get started with comic
relief back in the eighties. I mean, you have this
remarkable career and this remarkable body of work. And I
will tell you one other story, Richard, which I did
tell you. I remember a wonderful short subject years ago,
and I think I shared this with you when we
(05:59):
sat together. Albert Brooks did it and it was a
school for comedy and it said when you want to
be a comedian, and this was like a school that
you'd be trained. Classes you were forced to take was
choose your charity. And it was funny because here Jerry
Lewis had muscular distrophe and Danny Thomas said Saint Jude's
(06:21):
and Richard Curtis's got comic relief, you know, and Red
Nosed Day. Did you go to school for that or
did you learn that naturally? No? I mean, you know,
the first thing I saw, which was sort of big
and charitable, was something called the Secret Policeman's Ball, which
was an event that John Cleese started in fact for Amnesty,
(06:42):
which was an organization I'd just bulleted when I was
a kid. But you know, it's that strange mixture between
sort of passion an opportunity. So after I saw Live Aid,
I thought, well, comedians should be able to do something.
We should pitch in here. And then I went to Ethiopia,
and you know, Michael, I saw things. I saw suffering
(07:05):
of a level. You you know, I never knew about
such terrible things. Huts where people who moved away from hunger,
and the nurses said to me, no one will survive
in that one. These guys maybe fifty percent, these guys
we hope are going to get through. And yet the
(07:26):
people in there were still rich and full people. You
heard laughter, you could perceive immense character and bravery. And
so I came home, just got together with my friends
and said what can we do? And what we did
was a seven hour special show, you know, with appeals
(07:47):
made by comedians and with a lot of comedy. Don't
see any contradiction there. And we came up with the
idea of a red nose just as a sort of
easy photograph like branding, really, and it was such a success.
The first one, I think we made fifteen million, that
the idea of giving it up seemed like in humans
(08:10):
that would be fully to give it up if yeah,
And so I did it again. The next year we
made twenty seven million, and suddenly we thought, well, let's
try and do this every year, and let's try and
be original in every point, the same way as new
comedy programs developed, new marketing ideas developed. Let's not get
stuck just in one rut. Let's see all these elements
(08:34):
in the world different kinds of TV program, lots of
relationships with businesses, publishing opportunities, music opportunities. Let's just keep
bashing away at it. And the moment you do it,
of course, you learn more about the need, so you
become more passionate about the causes, and it's become my
(08:54):
second life. It's basically I've spent however long it is,
probably I've been doing it six years, probably spent seventeen
of those just doing it. Well, it's been quite a run, Richard,
in what you identified there and you kind of anticipated
my next question is you normally don't think of charity
(09:15):
and comedy as being linked. You think of you know, concerts,
you know, live aid, you see it with music, you
see it with a concert, You don't generally see it
with comedy. Now, well, that was the great organization comic
Relief here that dealt with homelessness in America, and that was,
you know, brilliant and original. And it's time. What we're
(09:36):
trying to achieve is the world where people have got
time to be happy, to be joyful, to laugh. There
is no contradiction there. So and I've always found comedians
really unslf righteous about this, and they love being able
to do their own funny stuff and trust you to
distribute the money with you know, passion and accuracy. You've
(10:00):
reimagined this over the years, and what I think I
understand is Red Nose Day has gone through it's sort
of most dramatic makeover since it debuted in nineteen eighty eight.
I mean, can we talk about that. And you know, Johnny,
(10:21):
I've getting involved and well, just taking a step back.
The great thing about charity, you know, and you're so
well connected to so many you know, forms of media
and so many companies, is that what we've tried to do.
And what I wish that companies that everybody could think
is what's my particular superpower and what could I do? So,
(10:45):
you know, Sainsbury's mass market, Walgreen's mass market, and they
sell the Red Noses and we make absolutely millions. We
did records with you know, everyone from One Direction to
Joy Michael, and so every business has a place where
(11:05):
if they put something special onto the market for charity,
they can make real money. So Johnny I is just
the latest example of this. He and I have known
each other for a long while. He knows that I
love Red Nose Dahim. He just said to me one day,
why don't I try and design you a new red nose?
So why don't instead of it being a gorgeous simple
(11:26):
piece of plastic, let's see what my mind does with it.
And he's devised him and his group at Love from
this amazing thing. It arrives as a sort of red
crescent and then you open it up and it's like
a Christmas decoration and it's snaps onto your nose. And
they in fact invented a new type of hinge. And
(11:48):
the interesting thing is we're not selling them yet in America.
I hope that we will, but they're on sale in
the UK, and not only are they kind of brilliant
and exciting, but we're selling them through Amazon. And there
we go suddenly that new world, you know, the world
of online ordering, so that at the moment in the UK,
if you go online and you're buying a tea kettle,
(12:10):
you'll probably these of things saying would you like to
buy a red nose too? So they're that massive organization
suddenly using its muscle in order to sell. So you know,
this is my obsession for people. I was a second
rate comedy writer and with Together with my friends, we've
managed to raise I think it's now two billion dollars.
(12:34):
You know, what can anybody listening to this, who's you know,
big in sports or big in TV or big in
fizzy drinks? What can we all do to make our
lives doubly satisfying, you know, in the amount of money
we can raise to change other people's lives. And and Richard,
you might have already answered my next question because I
(12:55):
think you've just articulated it so well. The legacy of
Richard Curtis is obvious. The legacy of Richard Curtis is
a brilliant, talented filmmaker and director and writer. And God
knows that, Thank you, Michael. I've made some stinkers too,
but that we all have, but you get forgotten. Yeah,
(13:18):
but you know, I look at life, Richard, like a
television series. You know, there series that I have enjoyed,
but I could pick an episode or two I didn't like.
But I try to judge life and people and and
and moments in that run of the show. What was
the run of the show. Yeah, visit a single episode,
So those stinkers don't count. When you've got the the
(13:41):
the the absolute masterpieces that I articulated earlier. But I
know your legacy, but your legacy is going to be
impacted as well, and obviously by what you've done with
Red Nose Day. What do you hope the legacy of
Red Nose Day is? Well? What a big question. One
of the things is we never know what's going to
(14:01):
result from things that we do. So you know, I've
had peculiar things. So you know when Bob Golof did
Live Aid, you know one of his legacies is everything
to do with comic relief. I simply would not have
done it. And I wrote to a friend of mine
the other day, Henry Timms, to congratulate him on the
(14:21):
massive success of Giving Tuesday, and he was gracious enough
to write back and say, you know, I did Giving Tuesday,
which has raised billions because of comic relief. That was
something I used to do at school, and I thought,
let's find a way with new media to raise a
lot of money. And I was part of the campaign
that make Poverty History Live eight campaign. And I know
(14:45):
that Hugh Evans, who runs Global Citizen, it was the
weekend in Buenos Aires two weeks ago. Well, there we go.
But it was that that inspired him. So you know,
the answer is, I don't know. You know, it could
be that somebody who sets up an amazing new company
decides that they're going to really dedicate its profits to
(15:08):
change in the world. It could be, you know, some
person who writes something or makes a film as a
result of it. I think all you can do is
do your very best think of as many kind of
original things. I mean, the world of gaming obsessed me
at the moment. We're about to have a really great
deal with one of the big kids gaming things where
(15:28):
they kind of can go in a world and they
spend the money they usually spend, but the money comes,
you know, to comic relief, and you think, well, maybe
there's a person setting up a gaming thing who says,
let's go fifty to fifty. Here someone from TikTok who
says it could be the greatest fundraising mechanism in the world.
So I think all you can do in life, my motto,
(15:49):
Michael is to make things happen. You have to make things.
If you have a go your own go and you
do the thing you can do, then someone else will
have there go and the thing that they can do.
So I try not to think about my legacy and
just to keep doing good stuff and hope that there
is a legacy and a lot of brilliant organizations that
(16:12):
we funded. I'm glad you answered the question that way
because I took exception with somebody not that long ago
who was very famous person, boldfaced name in the entertainment
industry for sure, and they were being interviewed and she
said to this gentleman, something about your legacy, and he said,
and I happened to be in the room, and he said, oh,
I don't care about my legacy. And after the presentation,
(16:34):
I saw him in the because I was speaking next,
and I was in the green room when he was
coming off the stage, and I said, that was a
great presentation, except you're full of shit. And he looked
at me, said what do you mean. I said, everybody's
interested in their legacy. Everybody should be and is focused
on their legacy because it matters. It's what we leave behind.
(16:54):
It's what we do, but it's what we leave behind.
And pivot to a statement I was given by a
friend of mine recently that said, and I want to
get it right. She said, I don't want we She
was talking about an organization she's involved in business wise,
and she said, we don't want to talk about the
things we're going to do. We want to do the
(17:15):
things we're going to talk about. Ah. But I think
that was a great, great play on words, because it's
easy to say I'm going to do this, I'm gonna
do that. No, I don't want to know what you're
gonna do. Let's let's do it and then we can
talk about it. And Richard Curtis, you've done that. You've
done that in spades. You've done that in your in
your vocation and apparently in your advocation, because I think
(17:38):
they line up very well for you. I pride myself
on the fact that I tell people the person you
see in the in the business context, or in whatever
context is the same person you'd see if we were
in a personal conversation. I don't have two personas I
have one. Well you know it's and you get life
takes you by surprise, so you may not know. I'm
(18:00):
a UN advocate for the sustainable Development goals, and you know,
I think there are a brilliant plans set out by
every country in the world for how to make radical
progress between twenty fifteen and twenty thirty, and I absolutely
know that. When I was helping kind of design the
graphics for them and simplify them so that they were communicable,
(18:25):
I was only thinking about politicians. I was thinking, how
is this going to affect policymaking and countries. And the
very strange thing is the most active participants in the
goals have been businesses. We happen to catch a moment
when businesses started to realize that actually caring about the
(18:47):
world as a stakeholder rather than just your shareholders, the
impossibility of businesses operating in a sort of post climate
change environment, the fact that young people these days are
really interested in ethical consumerism, and people want to work
for a company that's doing good things rather than just
(19:08):
making good money, you know. So that's why I'm so
optimistic about things like Red Nose Day now, because I
think we're going to get the corporate partners and we're
at a moment when companies care about meaning. And that
didn't even occur to me when I started thinking about
the STS. I thought, I'm only talking to macron as
it were. And what's interesting, Richard, you say that, and
(19:31):
you're right, But yet there's a company that I have
great affection for based in the UK that took some
heat because they were arguably the allegation, if you will,
from a pundit in the press was that they were
overcorrecting on purpose. Ye if you're in business, you also
(19:52):
have to balance that against you know, the purposes of
a company. Your point is to deliver value to your
share holders, but you also can have the higher purpose
of delivering value to your shareholders through more sustainable you know,
ways of doing that. Yeah, no, and look, I think
I think you can have you know, you can so
(20:15):
have both, and you know, and three cheers for pushing
on every brand and you know, sometimes sometimes it'll go amiss,
but the general direction of travel. You know, I've been
talking a lot about sustainable investment recently because I'm part
of a campaign that's trying to shift pensions into investing,
(20:36):
you know, according to the STGs, not otherwise. And five
years ago those investments that was like a you know,
morals versus money argument. Those products were not doing as well.
They are doing as well now and maybe some blip,
you know, and the massive I remember Mark Carney saying
that sustainability is the biggest investment opportunity since the Industrial Revolution.
(21:00):
So it's a direction of travel. And three cheers for
taking a risk, because companies take risks all the time
on dodgy things. Do you know what I mean? On
fossil fuel expansion and cherry coke or whatever was that
famous you got. You gotta try some things. But how
brilliant to try your thing and win. And also, you know,
(21:24):
do good and change kids people's lives. There's two things
I'd like to say. I've said them already, but if
I could give you a standing ovation, I would, and
you know I'll do it just for the effect and
again for our listeners. I stood up and I applauded Richard.
I feel honored, Richard to have the opportunity to get
(21:47):
to know you number one, and I feel fortunate to
be able to share your story with our listeners. And
I am committed to do everything I can to help
in Red Nosed Day and comic relief and the full,
the full compliment of the things you're doing. And I
(22:07):
promised to continue to go see the movies when you
make them. Well, I'm just here with Melissa McCarthy. I
was looking at Melissa McCarthy in a hundred BC's Scottish
Garb just now and then I had this hilarious moment
where I looked around and I saw a hot dog costume.
I said, what, there are no hot dog gangs in
(22:30):
my movie and she said, oh, I've had an idea
about a hot dog. So it's been a surprising day.
But obviously, Michael, you know, I suppose my feeling is
that it's a shock and a surprise to me and
all the comedians who we've worked with that they've been
able to do extraordinary things. You know what. I remember
Adele coming on our show once and singing someone like
(22:53):
you for the first time, and it was just such
a perfect moment of emotion, a need that we made
four million pounds in seven minutes. And I suppose that
I would just say to everyone, just check out. Then
you're not a hero without knowing it, just have a
thought for a day and say, I wonder if that
(23:16):
bit of my business, that thing that I do, could
actually change other people's lives, because what we do with
the money is remarkable. You know, often if you have
a member of your family who is ill or sick,
you can't fix it. But I've just seen you know,
when you give a dollar it buys ten dollars of
(23:38):
food in a food bank. Vaccines that stop diseases that
kill cost seventeen cents. You know, you can really do
with little bits of money, and when you do the
multiplication on that, it's such satisfying magic. And honestly, if
I had to choose between my two careers, as much
(24:00):
as I feel sorry for Hugh Grant, that he would be,
you know, a rather attractive matre d in a second
rate restaurant in London without me. This has clearly been
the one that's been most wonderful. So I just tell
everyone you can have your cake and eat it too.
You can run a successful business, you can lead a
(24:22):
full life, and if you just apply yourself and please,
you know, contact us as a comment relief, because we've
got a million ideas. But if you apply yourself to
these issues, you'll be shocked by how much you can achieve. Richard,
I was raised on a principle of two things. Number One,
if you've had the good fortune to do well, you
(24:44):
have an obligation to do good. That's a lovely turn
of phrase. And number two, as I've always said, I've
split my life into thirds, and you obviously have as well,
at least I'm guessing the thirds. If I look at
a pie chart of my life. I've always said I
contribute a third of my time to my family, a
third of my time to my business, and a third
of my time to my community. It's never precise. It
(25:07):
might be ninety ten one day seventy thirty the other day,
but but in principle, on a continuum, I like to
try and do that. And I've done that in my
career and I'm proud of that. And Richard Curtis, you've
done it, and we're all thankful for you having done it.
And you know, I don't know your percentage of time,
but my bed is right now a heck of a
lot more time on Red Nose Day and Comic Relief
(25:29):
than than your primary career. So well, there's there's a
little bit. I've spent too much time listening to the
Beatles now I'm feeling bad about that, but too much
time last year watching Shits Creek. But I mean it's
it's been satisfying. And what the shock is the opportunities
and when you apply your mind to it. You know,
(25:51):
people who get in touch with current relief and say
they want to help. It's amazing what we achieve, what
we achieved together, and look, I can gratulate you on
that series of priorities too, and it's you know, it's
a satisfying thing. I got in touch with a friend
of mine who runs a major music business, and said,
let's do something about this pension issue. And he got
(26:12):
in touch and said I did it. And I said, oh,
thank you, And he said, oddly enough, the thanks to
the other way around, because it's the most popular thing
I've ever done with my employees. Really yeah, because they
suddenly thought we're doing something. The worst thing in the
world is opening the newspaper every day and saying I
can't do anything about child poverty, about Ukraine, about climate change.
(26:38):
And when you do the sort of stuff that you
and I do, you can read your paper with a
bit more comfort because you know that actually you are
doing something. I had a spin instructor once. I like
to get on those spin bikes occasionally, and I had
a spin instructor once who said, another little pearl of wisdom,
I want to get it right. She said, when people
(26:59):
say I don't have the time, what they really mean
to say is I didn't choose to allocate the time. Yeah.
And when people say I don't have the money, what
they mean to say is I didn't choose to allocate
the money to this. And I agree with both of those.
Time and money are both finite, okay, but you can
allocate your time and money even within the finite parameters
(27:20):
of what they are. I think that is true, and
I think there's just a particular joy in getting something
right that is on behalf of other people. I've always
when my movies make money, I always say to Emma,
I always say I wish something happened when we make
(27:41):
that money. Do you know what I mean? I wish
I could I got given an ice cream for every million.
It's just there, and the satisfaction of the money coming
into call it relief, and me reading the grants and
seeing the things that we're buying. You know, in every
city across the marriage there's money going to kids who,
(28:02):
through no fold of their own, have a very hard deal,
and you think, well, it is just so great that
someone they don't know has taken the time to do
something that's going to change their future. Well, in the
spirit of that, Richard Curtis. I'm glad you are now
somebody that I do know, and I want to thank
(28:23):
you for joining us on Good Company. And I want
to thank you for being Richard Curtis and doing all
you've done well. I look forward to see you very
soon again. It will have some plus. I'm Michael Casson,
thanks for listening to Good Company. Good Company is a
(28:44):
production of iHeartRadio. Special Thanks to Lena Peterson, chief Brand
Officer and Managing Director of Media Link, for her vision
I'm Good Company, and to Jen Seely, vice President Marketing
Communications of media Link for programming amazing talent and content
Good Company is a production of iHeartRadio. What we've tried
to do and well, I wish that companies that everybody
could think is what's my particular superpower and what could
I do? Hi? I'm Michael Casson. Welcome to Good Company,
(00:20):
where I'll explore how marketing, media, entertainment and tech are intersecting,
transforming our lives and the way we do business at
a breakneck speed. I'll be joined by some of the
greatest business minds at strongest leaders who will share how
they've built companies from the ground up or transform them
from the inside out. My bed is you'll pick up
a lesson or two along the way. It's all good.
(00:43):
Red Nosed Day is an annual fundraising campaign organized by
Comic Relief to end child poverty throughout the world. The
organization funds programs that help keep children safe and healthy
while providing them with a support and education. This year,
Red Day will take place on March seventeenth, and as
an excellent opportunity to get involved and raise awareness for
(01:05):
the incredible organization. Today, I am particularly excited to welcome
a legendary screenwriter, director, and the co founder and vice
chair of Comic Relief, Richard Curtis, Richard, welcome and thank you.
Michael is so great to be here. I already have
to slightly put you right because Mark seventeen, well not
(01:27):
put you right, and you up. March seventeen is the
UK Red Nose Day, and then Red Nose Day USA
is in May. In fact, well there you go. It's
kind of like Mother's Day. The UK has Mother's Day
in March and the US has Mother's Day in May.
I learned that, so see every day is Mother's Day.
Michael is there? Oh God, yes, so Richard. March seventeenth,
(01:51):
I'm glad you clarified is Red Nose Day in the
UK and May twenty fifth is Red Nose Day in
the US. That's right. And it's a season because we
start selling the red noses in Walgreens at the beginning
of April, and lots of different things happened during that
time online events and other things on sales, so it's
a kind of it's a season of goodwill, is how
(02:14):
I like to pick about for those of our listeners
who are not familiar with Comic Relief or Red Nose Day,
and God knows, there can't be that many people are
not familiar with those two concepts or those two events.
Can you talk about it from inception? But and how
do you decide where the money goes? You know, you've
got so many worthy recipients organizationally, and then of course
(02:37):
the flow from the organization to the individuals. What's the criteria,
what's the vetting process you go through to determine how
you distribute the cash? Well, the wonderful answer is, it
hasn't got that much to do with me. These are
really serious issues. You know, in the USA, we're giving
money to kids at home and kids all over the world,
(03:02):
and you need real experts working on it all the time.
So what we do is we've got a grants group
within the organization and they're really trying to look out
for what's going to keep kids healthy, safe, educated, empowered.
And we started in the USA by giving money to
(03:22):
some big, sort of blue chip organizations like Boys and
Girls Club and Save the Children and United Way. And
we still really work with some of these big, brilliant organizations,
but we also sort of go down into the grassroots
and try and find organizations that are small, brilliant new ideas,
(03:44):
you know, and the idea always is to cover both bases.
I'm desperately keen that if someone buys a red Nose
that they should really believe it's instantly going to make
a difference. So, you know, we're dealing with food poverty abroad,
we're often dealing with sort of dramatic health which can
be helped by a malaria net or something like that.
But then we're also sort of addressing the root causes
(04:06):
of poverty, trying to find out what causes those things.
Really give kids an opportunity early on in their lives
to get a better education, better opportunity not let their
health get messed around in a way it's going to
affect them then for the rest of their lives. So
the truth of the matter is it's a huge group
of real experts led by a very talented group amongst
(04:29):
us who are trying to get to you know, sometimes
it's quite a bit of money in one small organization
that helps a thousand people, but then sometimes it's a
massive broad spread of just giving money to Feeding America
and they'll just feed thousands upon thousands of families. So
I think we've helped something like seventeen million kids at
(04:52):
home and around the world since we started here. Well,
you're talking about the start, first of all. That's an
astounding statistic and something to be applauded. I want to
go back. You know. Look, you're a famous guy. And
when we first had the pleasure to meet, I told
you I was with a group of my British friends
some time ago and we had a Richard Curtis week.
(05:15):
We were together on a holiday and all my British
friends said, we're doing four weddings in a funeral notting
Hill Bridget Jones love actually night after night, almost to
the point I got sick of you at some point.
I'm kidding, honestly, that's like a big boat of pasta
every night. You should be careful of that. I'm telling you.
The calories were incredible, but so was the pleasure. But
(05:38):
I would list as many would those movies in my favorites.
What led you to kind of get started with comic
relief back in the eighties. I mean, you have this
remarkable career and this remarkable body of work. And I
will tell you one other story, Richard, which I did
tell you. I remember a wonderful short subject years ago,
and I think I shared this with you when we
(05:59):
sat together. Albert Brooks did it and it was a
school for comedy and it said when you want to
be a comedian, and this was like a school that
you'd be trained. Classes you were forced to take was
choose your charity. And it was funny because here Jerry
Lewis had muscular distrophe and Danny Thomas said Saint Jude's
(06:21):
and Richard Curtis's got comic relief, you know, and Red
Nosed Day. Did you go to school for that or
did you learn that naturally? No? I mean, you know,
the first thing I saw, which was sort of big
and charitable, was something called the Secret Policeman's Ball, which
was an event that John Cleese started in fact for Amnesty,
(06:42):
which was an organization I'd just bulleted when I was
a kid. But you know, it's that strange mixture between
sort of passion an opportunity. So after I saw Live Aid,
I thought, well, comedians should be able to do something.
We should pitch in here. And then I went to Ethiopia,
and you know, Michael, I saw things. I saw suffering
(07:05):
of a level. You you know, I never knew about
such terrible things. Huts where people who moved away from hunger,
and the nurses said to me, no one will survive
in that one. These guys maybe fifty percent, these guys
we hope are going to get through. And yet the
(07:26):
people in there were still rich and full people. You
heard laughter, you could perceive immense character and bravery. And
so I came home, just got together with my friends
and said what can we do? And what we did
was a seven hour special show, you know, with appeals
(07:47):
made by comedians and with a lot of comedy. Don't
see any contradiction there. And we came up with the
idea of a red nose just as a sort of
easy photograph like branding, really, and it was such a success.
The first one, I think we made fifteen million, that
the idea of giving it up seemed like in humans
(08:10):
that would be fully to give it up if yeah,
And so I did it again. The next year we
made twenty seven million, and suddenly we thought, well, let's
try and do this every year, and let's try and
be original in every point, the same way as new
comedy programs developed, new marketing ideas developed. Let's not get
stuck just in one rut. Let's see all these elements
(08:34):
in the world different kinds of TV program, lots of
relationships with businesses, publishing opportunities, music opportunities. Let's just keep
bashing away at it. And the moment you do it,
of course, you learn more about the need, so you
become more passionate about the causes, and it's become my
(08:54):
second life. It's basically I've spent however long it is,
probably I've been doing it six years, probably spent seventeen
of those just doing it. Well, it's been quite a run, Richard,
in what you identified there and you kind of anticipated
my next question is you normally don't think of charity
(09:15):
and comedy as being linked. You think of you know, concerts,
you know, live aid, you see it with music, you
see it with a concert, You don't generally see it
with comedy. Now, well, that was the great organization comic
Relief here that dealt with homelessness in America, and that was,
you know, brilliant and original. And it's time. What we're
(09:36):
trying to achieve is the world where people have got
time to be happy, to be joyful, to laugh. There
is no contradiction there. So and I've always found comedians
really unslf righteous about this, and they love being able
to do their own funny stuff and trust you to
distribute the money with you know, passion and accuracy. You've
(10:00):
reimagined this over the years, and what I think I
understand is Red Nose Day has gone through it's sort
of most dramatic makeover since it debuted in nineteen eighty eight.
I mean, can we talk about that. And you know, Johnny,
(10:21):
I've getting involved and well, just taking a step back.
The great thing about charity, you know, and you're so
well connected to so many you know, forms of media
and so many companies, is that what we've tried to do.
And what I wish that companies that everybody could think
is what's my particular superpower and what could I do? So,
(10:45):
you know, Sainsbury's mass market, Walgreen's mass market, and they
sell the Red Noses and we make absolutely millions. We
did records with you know, everyone from One Direction to
Joy Michael, and so every business has a place where
(11:05):
if they put something special onto the market for charity,
they can make real money. So Johnny I is just
the latest example of this. He and I have known
each other for a long while. He knows that I
love Red Nose Dahim. He just said to me one day,
why don't I try and design you a new red nose?
So why don't instead of it being a gorgeous simple
(11:26):
piece of plastic, let's see what my mind does with it.
And he's devised him and his group at Love from
this amazing thing. It arrives as a sort of red
crescent and then you open it up and it's like
a Christmas decoration and it's snaps onto your nose. And
they in fact invented a new type of hinge. And
(11:48):
the interesting thing is we're not selling them yet in America.
I hope that we will, but they're on sale in
the UK, and not only are they kind of brilliant
and exciting, but we're selling them through Amazon. And there
we go suddenly that new world, you know, the world
of online ordering, so that at the moment in the UK,
if you go online and you're buying a tea kettle,
(12:10):
you'll probably these of things saying would you like to
buy a red nose too? So they're that massive organization
suddenly using its muscle in order to sell. So you know,
this is my obsession for people. I was a second
rate comedy writer and with Together with my friends, we've
managed to raise I think it's now two billion dollars.
(12:34):
You know, what can anybody listening to this, who's you know,
big in sports or big in TV or big in
fizzy drinks? What can we all do to make our
lives doubly satisfying, you know, in the amount of money
we can raise to change other people's lives. And and Richard,
you might have already answered my next question because I
(12:55):
think you've just articulated it so well. The legacy of
Richard Curtis is obvious. The legacy of Richard Curtis is
a brilliant, talented filmmaker and director and writer. And God
knows that, Thank you, Michael. I've made some stinkers too,
but that we all have, but you get forgotten. Yeah,
(13:18):
but you know, I look at life, Richard, like a
television series. You know, there series that I have enjoyed,
but I could pick an episode or two I didn't like.
But I try to judge life and people and and
and moments in that run of the show. What was
the run of the show. Yeah, visit a single episode,
So those stinkers don't count. When you've got the the
(13:41):
the the absolute masterpieces that I articulated earlier. But I
know your legacy, but your legacy is going to be
impacted as well, and obviously by what you've done with
Red Nose Day. What do you hope the legacy of
Red Nose Day is? Well? What a big question. One
of the things is we never know what's going to
(14:01):
result from things that we do. So you know, I've
had peculiar things. So you know when Bob Golof did
Live Aid, you know one of his legacies is everything
to do with comic relief. I simply would not have
done it. And I wrote to a friend of mine
the other day, Henry Timms, to congratulate him on the
(14:21):
massive success of Giving Tuesday, and he was gracious enough
to write back and say, you know, I did Giving Tuesday,
which has raised billions because of comic relief. That was
something I used to do at school, and I thought,
let's find a way with new media to raise a
lot of money. And I was part of the campaign
that make Poverty History Live eight campaign. And I know
(14:45):
that Hugh Evans, who runs Global Citizen, it was the
weekend in Buenos Aires two weeks ago. Well, there we go.
But it was that that inspired him. So you know,
the answer is, I don't know. You know, it could
be that somebody who sets up an amazing new company
decides that they're going to really dedicate its profits to
(15:08):
change in the world. It could be, you know, some
person who writes something or makes a film as a
result of it. I think all you can do is
do your very best think of as many kind of
original things. I mean, the world of gaming obsessed me
at the moment. We're about to have a really great
deal with one of the big kids gaming things where
(15:28):
they kind of can go in a world and they
spend the money they usually spend, but the money comes,
you know, to comic relief, and you think, well, maybe
there's a person setting up a gaming thing who says,
let's go fifty to fifty. Here someone from TikTok who
says it could be the greatest fundraising mechanism in the world.
So I think all you can do in life, my motto,
(15:49):
Michael is to make things happen. You have to make things.
If you have a go your own go and you
do the thing you can do, then someone else will
have there go and the thing that they can do.
So I try not to think about my legacy and
just to keep doing good stuff and hope that there
is a legacy and a lot of brilliant organizations that
(16:12):
we funded. I'm glad you answered the question that way
because I took exception with somebody not that long ago
who was very famous person, boldfaced name in the entertainment
industry for sure, and they were being interviewed and she
said to this gentleman, something about your legacy, and he said,
and I happened to be in the room, and he said, oh,
I don't care about my legacy. And after the presentation,
(16:34):
I saw him in the because I was speaking next,
and I was in the green room when he was
coming off the stage, and I said, that was a
great presentation, except you're full of shit. And he looked
at me, said what do you mean. I said, everybody's
interested in their legacy. Everybody should be and is focused
on their legacy because it matters. It's what we leave behind.
(16:54):
It's what we do, but it's what we leave behind.
And pivot to a statement I was given by a
friend of mine recently that said, and I want to
get it right. She said, I don't want we She
was talking about an organization she's involved in business wise,
and she said, we don't want to talk about the
things we're going to do. We want to do the
(17:15):
things we're going to talk about. Ah. But I think
that was a great, great play on words, because it's
easy to say I'm going to do this, I'm gonna
do that. No, I don't want to know what you're
gonna do. Let's let's do it and then we can
talk about it. And Richard Curtis, you've done that. You've
done that in spades. You've done that in your in
your vocation and apparently in your advocation, because I think
(17:38):
they line up very well for you. I pride myself
on the fact that I tell people the person you
see in the in the business context, or in whatever
context is the same person you'd see if we were
in a personal conversation. I don't have two personas I
have one. Well you know it's and you get life
takes you by surprise, so you may not know. I'm
(18:00):
a UN advocate for the sustainable Development goals, and you know,
I think there are a brilliant plans set out by
every country in the world for how to make radical
progress between twenty fifteen and twenty thirty, and I absolutely
know that. When I was helping kind of design the
graphics for them and simplify them so that they were communicable,
(18:25):
I was only thinking about politicians. I was thinking, how
is this going to affect policymaking and countries. And the
very strange thing is the most active participants in the
goals have been businesses. We happen to catch a moment
when businesses started to realize that actually caring about the
(18:47):
world as a stakeholder rather than just your shareholders, the
impossibility of businesses operating in a sort of post climate
change environment, the fact that young people these days are
really interested in ethical consumerism, and people want to work
for a company that's doing good things rather than just
(19:08):
making good money, you know. So that's why I'm so
optimistic about things like Red Nose Day now, because I
think we're going to get the corporate partners and we're
at a moment when companies care about meaning. And that
didn't even occur to me when I started thinking about
the STS. I thought, I'm only talking to macron as
it were. And what's interesting, Richard, you say that, and
(19:31):
you're right, But yet there's a company that I have
great affection for based in the UK that took some
heat because they were arguably the allegation, if you will,
from a pundit in the press was that they were
overcorrecting on purpose. Ye if you're in business, you also
(19:52):
have to balance that against you know, the purposes of
a company. Your point is to deliver value to your
share holders, but you also can have the higher purpose
of delivering value to your shareholders through more sustainable you know,
ways of doing that. Yeah, no, and look, I think
I think you can have you know, you can so
(20:15):
have both, and you know, and three cheers for pushing
on every brand and you know, sometimes sometimes it'll go amiss,
but the general direction of travel. You know, I've been
talking a lot about sustainable investment recently because I'm part
of a campaign that's trying to shift pensions into investing,
(20:36):
you know, according to the STGs, not otherwise. And five
years ago those investments that was like a you know,
morals versus money argument. Those products were not doing as well.
They are doing as well now and maybe some blip,
you know, and the massive I remember Mark Carney saying
that sustainability is the biggest investment opportunity since the Industrial Revolution.
(21:00):
So it's a direction of travel. And three cheers for
taking a risk, because companies take risks all the time
on dodgy things. Do you know what I mean? On
fossil fuel expansion and cherry coke or whatever was that
famous you got. You gotta try some things. But how
brilliant to try your thing and win. And also, you know,
(21:24):
do good and change kids people's lives. There's two things
I'd like to say. I've said them already, but if
I could give you a standing ovation, I would, and
you know I'll do it just for the effect and
again for our listeners. I stood up and I applauded Richard.
I feel honored, Richard to have the opportunity to get
(21:47):
to know you number one, and I feel fortunate to
be able to share your story with our listeners. And
I am committed to do everything I can to help
in Red Nosed Day and comic relief and the full,
the full compliment of the things you're doing. And I
(22:07):
promised to continue to go see the movies when you
make them. Well, I'm just here with Melissa McCarthy. I
was looking at Melissa McCarthy in a hundred BC's Scottish
Garb just now and then I had this hilarious moment
where I looked around and I saw a hot dog costume.
I said, what, there are no hot dog gangs in
(22:30):
my movie and she said, oh, I've had an idea
about a hot dog. So it's been a surprising day.
But obviously, Michael, you know, I suppose my feeling is
that it's a shock and a surprise to me and
all the comedians who we've worked with that they've been
able to do extraordinary things. You know what. I remember
Adele coming on our show once and singing someone like
(22:53):
you for the first time, and it was just such
a perfect moment of emotion, a need that we made
four million pounds in seven minutes. And I suppose that
I would just say to everyone, just check out. Then
you're not a hero without knowing it, just have a
thought for a day and say, I wonder if that
(23:16):
bit of my business, that thing that I do, could
actually change other people's lives, because what we do with
the money is remarkable. You know, often if you have
a member of your family who is ill or sick,
you can't fix it. But I've just seen you know,
when you give a dollar it buys ten dollars of
(23:38):
food in a food bank. Vaccines that stop diseases that
kill cost seventeen cents. You know, you can really do
with little bits of money, and when you do the
multiplication on that, it's such satisfying magic. And honestly, if
I had to choose between my two careers, as much
(24:00):
as I feel sorry for Hugh Grant, that he would be,
you know, a rather attractive matre d in a second
rate restaurant in London without me. This has clearly been
the one that's been most wonderful. So I just tell
everyone you can have your cake and eat it too.
You can run a successful business, you can lead a
(24:22):
full life, and if you just apply yourself and please,
you know, contact us as a comment relief, because we've
got a million ideas. But if you apply yourself to
these issues, you'll be shocked by how much you can achieve. Richard,
I was raised on a principle of two things. Number One,
if you've had the good fortune to do well, you
(24:44):
have an obligation to do good. That's a lovely turn
of phrase. And number two, as I've always said, I've
split my life into thirds, and you obviously have as well,
at least I'm guessing the thirds. If I look at
a pie chart of my life. I've always said I
contribute a third of my time to my family, a
third of my time to my business, and a third
of my time to my community. It's never precise. It
(25:07):
might be ninety ten one day seventy thirty the other day,
but but in principle, on a continuum, I like to
try and do that. And I've done that in my
career and I'm proud of that. And Richard Curtis, you've
done it, and we're all thankful for you having done it.
And you know, I don't know your percentage of time,
but my bed is right now a heck of a
lot more time on Red Nose Day and Comic Relief
(25:29):
than than your primary career. So well, there's there's a
little bit. I've spent too much time listening to the
Beatles now I'm feeling bad about that, but too much
time last year watching Shits Creek. But I mean it's
it's been satisfying. And what the shock is the opportunities
and when you apply your mind to it. You know,
(25:51):
people who get in touch with current relief and say
they want to help. It's amazing what we achieve, what
we achieved together, and look, I can gratulate you on
that series of priorities too, and it's you know, it's
a satisfying thing. I got in touch with a friend
of mine who runs a major music business, and said,
let's do something about this pension issue. And he got
(26:12):
in touch and said I did it. And I said, oh,
thank you, And he said, oddly enough, the thanks to
the other way around, because it's the most popular thing
I've ever done with my employees. Really yeah, because they
suddenly thought we're doing something. The worst thing in the
world is opening the newspaper every day and saying I
can't do anything about child poverty, about Ukraine, about climate change.
(26:38):
And when you do the sort of stuff that you
and I do, you can read your paper with a
bit more comfort because you know that actually you are
doing something. I had a spin instructor once. I like
to get on those spin bikes occasionally, and I had
a spin instructor once who said, another little pearl of wisdom,
I want to get it right. She said, when people
(26:59):
say I don't have the time, what they really mean
to say is I didn't choose to allocate the time. Yeah.
And when people say I don't have the money, what
they mean to say is I didn't choose to allocate
the money to this. And I agree with both of those.
Time and money are both finite, okay, but you can
allocate your time and money even within the finite parameters
(27:20):
of what they are. I think that is true, and
I think there's just a particular joy in getting something
right that is on behalf of other people. I've always
when my movies make money, I always say to Emma,
I always say I wish something happened when we make
(27:41):
that money. Do you know what I mean? I wish
I could I got given an ice cream for every million.
It's just there, and the satisfaction of the money coming
into call it relief, and me reading the grants and
seeing the things that we're buying. You know, in every
city across the marriage there's money going to kids who,
(28:02):
through no fold of their own, have a very hard deal,
and you think, well, it is just so great that
someone they don't know has taken the time to do
something that's going to change their future. Well, in the
spirit of that, Richard Curtis. I'm glad you are now
somebody that I do know, and I want to thank
(28:23):
you for joining us on Good Company. And I want
to thank you for being Richard Curtis and doing all
you've done well. I look forward to see you very
soon again. It will have some plus. I'm Michael Casson,
thanks for listening to Good Company. Good Company is a
(28:44):
production of iHeartRadio. Special Thanks to Lena Peterson, chief Brand
Officer and Managing Director of Media Link, for her vision
I'm Good Company, and to Jen Seely, vice President Marketing
Communications of media Link for programming amazing talent and content
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