Julia Roberts Once Turned Down A ‘Notting Hill’ Mini-Sequel Due To Script’s Divorce Plot – Report

Notting Hill screenwriter Richard Curtis has, in the past, reunited the cast of Love Actually for short British TV films to benefit the annual Red Nose Day charity. But nothing with Notting, and not for lack of trying.

The screenwriter says in a new interview with IndieWire that Notting Hill star Julie Roberts nixed a potential reunion when she learned that the “mini sequel” would have her Anna Scott character divorcing Hugh Grant’s William Thacker.

Though Curtis says even he is not interested in full-length sequels to the films – “I actually did four Red Nose Days and Comic Relief,” he says. “We did those mini sequels to Love Actually and those satisfied me” – a mini-Notting Hill reunion had been discussed.

“I tried doing one with Notting Hill,” he says in the interview, “where they were going to get divorced and Julia [Roberts] thought that was a very poor idea.”

Curtis currently is promoting his upcoming Netflix animated film That Christmas, premiering December 4.

As IndieWire points out, Hugh Grant probably isn’t burning for a return to Notting Hill either. The actor recently told Vanity Fair that he thinks his character was “despicable.”

“Whenever I’m flicking the channels at home after a few drinks and this comes up, I just think, ‘Why doesn’t my character have any balls?’” Grant said. “There’s a scene in this film where she’s in my house and the paps come to the front door and ring the bell and I think I just let her go past me and open the door. That’s awful. I’ve never had a girlfriend, or indeed now wife, who hasn’t said, ‘Why the hell didn’t you stop her? What’s wrong with you?’ And I don’t really have an answer to that — it’s how it was written. And I think he’s despicable, really.”