Love Actually director Richard Curtis has said he feels “a bit stupid” about parts of his 2003 Christmas rom-com, including its lack of diversity.

Curtis admitted elements of the movie are now “bound to feel out of date”.

The British filmmaker added that many people’s ongoing love for his film was “really touching”, however.

Curtis made the remarks on The Laughter & Secrets of Love Actually: 20 Years Later, a one-hour special broadcast on US TV channel ABC.

He appeared on the programme alongside stars Hugh Grant, Dame Emma Thompson and Bill Nighy, as well as Laura Linney and Thomas Brodie-Sangster.

Asked by anchor Diane Sawyer if there were any elements of the film that “made you wince”, Curtis replied: “There are things that you would change, but thank God society is changing.

“My film is bound in some moments to feel out of date,” he said. “The lack of diversity makes me feel uncomfortable and a bit stupid.

“There is such extraordinary love that goes on every minute in so many ways [in life generally], all the way around the world, and makes me wish my film was better.

“It makes me wish I’d made a documentary just to kind of observe it.”

He later added how films, when done well, can “act as a reminder of how lovely things can be and how there are all sorts of things which we might pass by, which are in fact the best moments in our lives”.

The star-studded Love Actually pulls together a string of separate but inter-linked romantic tales into one festive feast, which many viewers continue to devour to this day, while others find it sickly and in parts problematic and sexist.

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