The 10 secrets you never knew about Love Actually including what Keira Knightley hid under that awful baker-boy hat
LOVE Actually is one of our all-time favourite Christmas films to cuddle up and watch every year.
From sobbing over Alan Rickman’s affair to laughing to Hugh Grant‘s iconic dance scene – it’s a film that gets us in all the feels.
But there are also plenty of little-known behind-the-scene secrets of the film and here we look at some of the most shocking to date.
Refusing payment
We all love the scene where Colin heads to the US and finally gets some attention from girls, and it turns out, he did too..
According to IMBD, Kris Marshall who played the loveable character didn’t get paid for the scene.
Apparently, the star was so pleased he got to spend a whole day “getting undressed by three American girls” that he handed his paycheque back to the director Richard Curtis.
All the way
We all hoped Alan Rickman’s character didn’t have a full-blown affair behind Karen’s(played by Emma Thomspon) back but we have bad news.
Curtis’ wife Emma took to Twitter that he went all the way with the affair.
During the live Q&A session, she also said Harry and Karen stayed together but “home isn’t as happy as it once was”.
Family affair
Love Actually’s director named Colin Firth‘s character Jamie for one reason, and one reason only: That’s his brother’s name.
When Jamie turns up at his family Christmas, he promptly leaves, to find the love of his life and the kids exclaim “I hate Uncle Jamie”…
Curtis included it just to bug his brother.
Hits home
In regards to the affair shown on screen between Harry and Karen, Emma Thompson once said she related to it and channeled personal heartbreak while finding the necklace for his lover.
“I had my heart very badly broken by [ex-husband Kenneth Branagh],” Thompson said at a fundraising event in early 2018.
“So I knew what it was like to find the necklace that wasn’t meant for me.”
Her ex-husband Kenneth reportedly had an affair on Emma with Helena Bonham Carter.
The UK's highest-grossing Christmas movies of all time
1. The Grinch (2018) – £424,000,000
2. Home Alone (1990) – £376,000,000
3. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – £283,000,000
4. Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (2000) – £273,000,000
5. A Christmas Carol (2009) – £256,000,000
6. The Polar Express (2004) – £250,000,000
7. Elf (2003) – £180,000,000
8. The Holiday (2006) – £162,000,000
9. The Santa Clause (1994) – £150,000,000
10. The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) – £137,000,000
Figures accurate as of November 2024
Hats off
When Keira Knightly’s character goes to watch her wedding films she is wearing a rather distracting and quite frankly, ugly baker-boy hat.
But it turns out that hat wasn’t even supposed to be in the scene in the first place.
It was a last-minute addition for Keira’s character Julia for one relatable reason: To disguise a “massive spot” on her forehead.
“Do you know why the hat was there? I had a massive spot in the middle of my forehead,” Knightley said on BBC Radio 1.
“This is the problem with being 17 and being in films. It was humongous. We had to find a hat to cover it. There was no lighting, there was no makeup that was going to cover it.”
Psycho thriller
While marking 20 years of the film, the cast reunited in 2022 for a screening event called The Laughter & Secrets of Love Actually: 20 Years Later – A Diane Sawyer Special.
During the special, Emma Thompson said that during filming, Hugh Grant said it was perhaps their “most psychotic” film.
“Hugh came up behind me as we were walking out and said, ‘Is that the most psychotic thing we’ve ever been in?'” Thompson said in the promo shared by Entertainment Weekly.
Known for his cheeky comments he replied: “Did I say that?” sheepishly.
Festive cheer
While it might be one of our favourite Christmas films, Curtis revealed it was never meant to be one.
“I’m so surprised and delighted by the Love Actually thing, because when I first started the movie it wasn’t set at Christmas then I love Christmas movies, so I thought I’ll make a Christmas movie, but it didn’t occur to me that it might be one of those Christmas movies where people actually watch it again and again and it’s a delightful surprise to me,” Richard Curtis told VH1.
Shallow water
In the scene where Jamie played by Colin Firth loses his books to the river he and Aurelia jump in to save what they can.
But the river was actually just 18 inches deep and the pair had to kneel down and pretend they were in deep water.
It was also overrun by mosquitos and Colin was bitten so badly his elbow swelled up to the size of an avocado, requiring medical attention.
Angel in disguise
Curtis’ wife Emma also revealed that Rowan Atkinson‘s character who wraps the present for Harry’s lover was actually an angel.
The reason he took so long wrapping the gift was on purpose to stop Alan Rickman’s character from buying it in the first place.
At the end of the film when he helps the young boy Sam through the airport, he was originally meant to disintegrate but Curtis decided against the scene.
Dance off
Hugh Grant hated his iconic dancing scene in the film and put it off as much as possible.
Curtis revealed the truth in an interview with the Daily Beast that “[Hugh] was hugely grumpy about it.”
“The fault line was the dance, because there was no way he could do that in a prime ministerial manner. He kept on putting it off, and he didn’t like the song — it was originally a Jackson 5 song, but we couldn’t get it — so he was hugely unhappy about it.
“We didn’t shoot it until the final day and it went so well that when we edited it, it had gone too well, and he was singing along with the words. When you edit a dance sequence like that, it’s going to be a third of the length, and the bit he’s singing the words to isn’t going to be the bit of that moment, so it was incredibly hard to edit.”