3 Best Richard Curtis Monologues

The Girl in the Café (Gina)

The Girl in the Café (Gina)

Category: Movie Role: Gina From: The Girl in the Café

I doubt it. I imagine I’ll be thrown out later so it’s probably got to be now. I don’t know how much the rest of you ladies know about what’s going on but my friend here tells me that while we are eating a hundred million children are nearly starving. There’s just millions of kids who’d kill for the amount of food that fat old me left on the side of my plate, children who are then so weak they’ll die if a mosquito bites them. And so they do die. One every three seconds. There they go. And another one. Anyone who has kids knows that every mother and father in Africa must love their children as much as they do, and to watch your kids die, to watch them die and then to die yourself in trying to protect them, that’s not right. And tomorrow eight of the men sitting ’round this table actually have the ability to sort this out by making a few great decisions. And if they don’t, some day someone else will. And they’ll look back on us lot and say, people were actually dying in their millions unnecessarily, in front of you, on your TV screens. What were you thinking? You knew what to do to stop it happening and you didn’t do those things. Shame on you. So that’s what you have to do tomorrow. Be great instead of being ashamed. It can’t be impossible. It must be possible.

Love Actually (David)

Love Actually (David)

Category: Movie Role: David From: Love Actually

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around.

Four Weddings and a Funeral (Matthew)

Four Weddings and a Funeral (Matthew)

Category: Movie Role: Matthew From: Four Weddings and a Funeral

Gareth used to prefer funerals to weddings. He said it was easier to get enthusiastic about a ceremony one had an outside chance of eventually being involved in. In order to prepare this speech, I rang a few people, to get a general picture of how Gareth was regarded by those who met him. Fat seems to be a word that people most connected with him. Terribly rude also rang a lot of bells. So very fat and very rude seems to have been a stranger’s viewpoint. On the other hand, some of you have been kind enough to ring me and let me know that you loved him, which I know he’d have been thrilled to hear. You remember his fabulous hospitality, his strange experimental cooking. The recipe for ‘Duck a la Banana’ fortunately goes with him to his grave. Most of all, you tell me of his enormous capacity for joy. When joyful, when joyful for highly vocal drunkenness. But I hope joyful is how you will remember him. Not stuck in a box in a church. Pick your favorite of his waistcoats and remember him that way. The most splendid, replete, big-hearted, weak-hearted as it turned out, and jolly bugger most of us ever met. As for me, you may ask how I will remember him, what I thought of him. Unfortunately there, I don’t have words. Perhaps you will forgive me if I turn from my own feelings to the words of another splendid bugger: W.H. Auden. This is actually what I wanted to say: ‘Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum, Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let the aeroplanes circle, moaning overhead, Scribbling on the sky the message: He is Dead. Put crepe bows ’round the white necks of the public doves, Let traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West. My working week and my Sunday rest. My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song, I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now, put out every one. Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun. Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood, For nothing now can ever come to any good.’