Richard Curtis thinks ‘Love Island’ is the "greatest television programme of all time".
The 62-year-old screenwriter – who has penned hit romantic comedy films such as ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’, ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ and ‘Love Actually’ – spends his "life" trying to get actors to portray the emotion he sees on the ITV2 reality dating show, and thinks it’s "amazing" to see the programme’s "complex algorithm at work".
Speaking on Jessie Ware’s ‘Table Manners’ podcast, he said: "I hope Lucie [Donlan] lasts all nine weeks. It’s such a complex algorithm.
"As someone who has written about romance and love, what is so amazing, is it actually see it happening.
"Certainly what has happened in the last few days, Joe [Garratt] has definitely fallen in love with Lucie.
"Tommy [Fury] comes in and she has to go with him, and then the dark side of Joe appears and you’re actually watching real emotions.
"I spend all my life trying to get actors to act these things as convincingly as they can.
"Suddenly, it’s happening right in front of you and you can watch it happening. I do find it intriguing … it is the greatest television program of all time."
The ‘Notting Hill’ scribe admits that even during the presence of Hollywood stars such as Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan at the ‘Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again’ premiere, he was more interested in catching the attention of former Islander Montana Brown.
He said: "I went to the premiere of ‘Mamma Mia’, what I worked on.
"It was psychologically interesting because Meryl Streep was there, Pierce Brosnan was there, Lily James was there.
"But Montana was there. That was all I cared about. I thought, ‘Bloody hell, that’s Montana. Get out of the way Meryl, Get out of the way Colin [Firth].’ "
Richard Curtis says Love Island is ‘greatest programme of all time’
