2024 Governors Awards profile: Filmmaker Richard Curtis to receive Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award
For about as long as he has been writing, directing, and producing films and television programs, Richard Curtis has continually devoted his time and energy to charitable causes benefitting impoverished people all over the world. In acknowledgment of his tireless efforts, the British multihyphenate has been named the next recipient of the film academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
Along with Quincy Jones, Juliet Taylor, Michael G. Wilson, and Barbara Broccoli, Curtis is set to be recognized at the 15th annual Governors Awards. In a press statement, academy president Janet Yang referred to Curtis as “a brilliant comedic storyteller whose tremendous charitable efforts embody the meaning of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.” Indeed, the New Zealand native and Oxford graduate has earned a reputation as one of the most compassionate and socially conscious figures in his industry.
Apart from his filmmaking career, Curtis is best known as the co-founder of Comic Relief, a telethon-based charity that has raised over £1.1 billion since 1985. Having spent most of the last two decades equally focused on the issues of income inequality and climate change, he has become further associated with organizations such as Make Poverty History, Project Everyone, and Make My Money Matter.
In addition to writing and directing “Love Actually” (2003), “The Boat That Rocked” (2009), and “About Time” (2013), Curtis has penned scripts for more than a dozen other films, including the revered romantic comedies “Notting Hill” (1999) and “Bridget Jones’s Diary” (2001) and Best Picture Oscar nominees “Four Weddings and a Funeral” (1994) and “War Horse” (2011). Among his greatest small screen contributions are “Blackadder,” “Mr. Bean,” and dozens of Red Nose Day fundraisers.
Curtis’s original “Four Weddings and a Funeral” screenplay brought him an Oscar nomination as well as honors from the Writers Guilds of America and Great Britain. He also has two Primetime Emmys under his belt for writing and producing the 2005 telefilm “The Girl in the Cafe” and is the recipient of one competitive and two honorary BAFTA Awards.
The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award is given to honor “an individual in the motion picture arts and sciences whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry.” Its namesake served as president of the academy for four years and of the Motion Picture & Television Fund for 18. It has been bestowed 44 times since 1957, with the last recipient having been Michelle Satter in 2023. With the exception of the 93rd Oscars in 2021, the award has been presented since 2009 at a separate ceremony that takes place several months before the same year’s main event. Curtis and his fellow honorees will collect their trophies on Sunday, November 17.
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