Love Actually Secrets That Will Be Perfect to You

If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love for Love Actually is all around.

This is especially true around the holiday season, when the movie is played on repeat.

The 2003 film directed and written by Richard Curtis—who also penned rom-coms like Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’s Diary—follows a series of interwoven love stories. While some of the plots are romantic and involve couples, others explore different forms of love. These include familial love, like the bond between siblings and the connection between a young boy and his newly widowed stepfather, as well as the love between friends, such as a rock star and his longtime manager.

“There are so many different relationships in the film, and what’s nice about it is that Richard’s tried to examine love at many, many different angles—not just romantic love, and not just sexual love and lust but also love between brothers and sisters and love that’s attached to negative emotions, like guilt and anger and all that,” cast member Emma Thompson told E! back in 2003. “And I think that’s exactly right. We’ve only got one word to describe a plethora of different emotions, and it’s not adequate by any means.”

Thompson is among the many big names featured in the star-studded film, with others including Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy, Martin Freeman, Andrew Lincoln, Chiwetel Ejiofor and the late Alan Rickman.

And while some could write out their love for the movie on a series of cards—just say it’s carol singers—not everyone is head over heels for the flick.

But just because it’s almost Christmas (and at Christmas you tell the truth) we’re breaking down 25 secrets about the film.

1. Love Actually opens with scenes of travelers hugging and kissing their nearest and dearest as they reunite at London's Heathrow Airport.

"This is my favorite bit in the film, in fact," writer/director Richard Curtis said in a director's commentary version of the film. "This footage was shot by a hidden camera, which was in Heathrow Airport for a whole week."

And the movie's team really had to jet to get permission to use these clips of real-life passengers.

"Every time they saw something they really liked, then the runner would charge off and ask the people to sign a bit of paper, whether or not they were happy that it should be shown in the film," he continued. "I still think it'll be quite a surprise to the people who go to the cinema and see themselves."

As for the inspiration behind the scene, it came from Curtis' personal experience.

"I got stuck in an airport in L.A. for an hour and a half waiting for a package, and I just saw all these people just all hugging and kissing," he added. "And you realize that behind normal people in the park and in the street, there's all these stories of love."

2. The first character fans meet in the 2003 movie is Bill Nighy's Billy Mack. He's a rock and roll star approaching his golden years who releases a holiday cover of Wet Wet Wet's "Love Is All Around," which secured the No. 1 spot in the U.K. for 15 weeks after the release of Curtis' 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral.

While it can be hard to imagine anyone but Nighy playing the part, he wasn't initially in the running for the role. It wasn't until the actor stepped in to help with a table read that Curtis knew he was the one for the job.

"I had two famous guys in mind to play the aging rocker Billy Mack, and I couldn't decide who to ask," the filmmaker told The Guardian in 2013. "But at the read-through, Bill did it so perfectly he became a definite yes. I've never told anyone else who I wanted. I'll put it in my will."

3. Martin Freeman has also shared his casting story.

In Love Actually, he portrays a man named John who meets a woman named Judy (Joanna Page) while they're stand-ins for a movie and filming a sex scene. They have great conversations, go out on a date and fall in love.

At the time of casting, Curtis had fallen in love with the U.K. version of The Office, which Freeman starred on from 2001 to 2003.

"I got attached to Love Actually because on the back of The Office Richard Curtis wrote me a very nice and flattering letter that contained a piece of chocolate in it," The Hobbit star recalled to Vanity Fair in 2020. "It was like a wrapped chocolate presented to me saying, 'I love The Office. I love what you did in The Office. It was amazing.'"

4. Before Thomas Brodie-Sangster was cast as Sam—a British boy who loses his mom and turns to his stepdad Daniel (Liam Neeson) to help him navigate his crush on American schoolmate Joanna—Joe Alwyn tried out for the part.

"This local community center where I took fencing lessons, this brilliant U.K. casting director called Shaheen Baig, she came around and she saw me there," The Favourite alum and ex of Taylor Swift, shared on a 2018 episode of Live With Kelly and Ryan. "It meant that I got time off school to go to this audition, so I went to it."

In fact, Alwyn said he went through several rounds of auditions and "a whole series of workshops" before the filmmakers decided to go with Brodie-Sangster.

"I didn't get it in the end, obviously," he added, "but I do remember meeting Hugh Grant and Richard Curtis and sitting down and reading some scenes."

5. Colin Firth played Jamie, a writer who leaves London for his French country home after learning his girlfriend cheated on him with his brother. There, Jamie meets Portuguese housekeeper Aurélia (Lúcia Moniz). And while they don't speak the same language, they understand the feelings they've formed for each other.

Jamie returns to England for a family Christmas party only to turn back around and, after learning some Portugese, propose to Aurélia. As he leaves, his niece yells, "I hate Uncle Jamie." And apparently, the name was a playful jab at Curtis' brother.

"Richard only called colin firth's character 'jamie' so the kids could say 'I hate uncle jamie,'" his wife and script writer Emma Freud tweeted in 2015. "His brother is called jamie."

6. As for Aurélia, Curtis shared in the director's commentary the name was a nod to a friend-slash-employee who looked after his and Emma's son.

7. In one scene, Jamie types outside while Aurélia clears a cup that had been holding down his papers, resulting in the wind sweeping them into a lake. Curtis said they used a wind machine so loud the lines were dubbed.

Aurélia dives in to retrieve the pages, and Jamie follows. However, Curtis said the lake was only 18 inches deep at the time of filming.

"They're kneeling now, pretending to swim, but actually crawling along the bottom, the poor things," he added in the commentary. "And Colin got stung by a sort of animal and his elbow swelled up to the size of three avocados the next day."

8. Martine McCutcheon played Natalie. Her character joins the staff of the newly elected prime minster David (Grant), and the two develop a crush on each other.

Curtis knew McCutcheon was the one for the role right from the get-go.

"I wrote Martine McCutcheon's part for her, too," he told The Guardian. "I even called the character Martine, though I had to change it before the read-through so she didn't think she'd already got it."

9. One of Grant's most famous scenes is when he does a celebratory dance to The Pointer Sisters' song "Jump (For My Love)" after standing up to the U.S. president. However, the actor wasn't thrilled about having to bust out some moves.

"I think I saw it in the script," Grant said in 2022 for The Laughter & Secrets of Love Actually: 20 Years Later – A Diane Sawyer Special, "and I thought, 'Well I'll hate doing that.'"

In fact, Curtis said Grant "kept saying no." Still, the Notting Hill star gave in eventually.

"He was grumpy," Curtis added in the special. "It was a contractual obligation, a bit of contractual obligation acting."

As for his reaction to Grant's performance in that scene?

"I’m thinking, ‘Oh, good he’s doing it,'" he recalled. "Two, that’s agonizingly embarrassing.”

And Grant admits he was off with his lip-synching and dancing.

"I'm out of rhythm by the way," he told Diane Sawyer, "especially at the beginning when I wiggle my ass.”

However, Grant is willing to take a bow for the scene's ending.

"It was my idea to have the secretary lady catch me," he noted in the special. "Genius!"

10. While it's clear Laura Linney's character Sarah had a crush on her co-worker Karl (Rodrigo Santoro), it wasn't as obvious to viewers that the costars were navigating their own heartaches off-screen.

"Hands down, I got the best kiss. Sorry!" the actress said on a 2019 episode of The Graham Norton Show, referencing Sarah and Karl's make-out session that ends when she receives a call about her brother Michael's mental health battle and leaves to be with him. "And it was sweet because we were both very brokenhearted when we made that movie. He had just been dumped, I had just been dumped."

Linney recalled how she and Santoro were "slumped in the van" lamenting about their breakups while on their way to film the scene.

"I turned to him, and I said, 'Well all day long we get to make each other feel better,'" she remembered, "and I think there is a sweetness to the scene because of that. We were both very sad."

11. Fans certainly said "I do" to the scene where Keira Knightley's charater Juliet marries Chiwetel Ejiofor's Peter, especially the part where the couple walks down the aisle and are surprised by musicians popping up from the church pews to perform The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love."

While the wedding is a joyful part of the film, the inspiration for it actually came from a day of mourning: Jim Henson's funeral, which Curtis called "the most moving thing" he's ever attended.

"At the end of it, Frank Oz was talking and he suddenly lifted up Kermit's puppet and started to sing this song called 'One Voice,'" he explained in the director's commentary. "And it turned out all the guys in the memorial service had brought their puppets with them, and they lifted them up. And when you turned around and looked backwards, there were 50 puppets all singing. And Big Bird walked down the aisle of St. Paul's Cathedral, and they all came forward and just this massive chorus of puppets all singing. It was an extraordinary thing. So, this was our little stab at that."

12. After the wedding, Juliet visits Peter's best friend Mark (Andrew Lincoln) to see if he captured any video footage of the wedding day. While she was under the impression he hated her, she learns (after popping in a VHS tape featuring footage of only her at the wedding) that he's actually been shielding his romantic feelings for her. 

In the scene, Juliet wears a hat. However, Knightley explained there was a reason for this fashion choice.

“I got the biggest zit of my life when we were shooting this scene,” the actress told Jimmy Fallon on a 2019 episode of The Tonight Show. “And this scene is the important one, isn’t it? It was like another head growing out of my head."

While Knightley said the makeup and lighting departments tried to hide the pimple, it was no use.

"There was nothing they could do," the Pride & Prejudice star added, "so the hat went on."

13. Fast-forward to later in the movie, Mark shows up at Juliet and Peter's house and rings the door bell. When she answers, he instructs her to tell her husband it's carol singers. Mark then comes clean about his love for her through a series of cards, including one that says "To me, you are perfect." 

In fact, Lincoln actually wrote out the cards himself.

"It is my handwriting!" The Walking Dead actor told Entertainment Weekly in 2013. "It’s funny, because the art department did it, and then I said, 'Well, can I do it?' because I like to think that my handwriting is really good. Actually, it ended up with me having to sort of trace over the art department’s, so it is my handwriting, but with a sort of pencil stencil underneath."

Juliet and Mark then part ways after she gives him a controversial kiss goodbye. In a 2017 sequel short for Red Nose Day, it's revealed that Juliet and Peter are still married and that Mark has tied the knot with supermodel Kate Moss, who was featured on one of his cards in the OG film.

14. While there appears to be a bigger age gap between Knightley and Brodie-Sangster in the movie, they're only five years apart IRL. She was 17 when they made the film, and he was 12.

15. Brodie-Sangster really did learn how to play the drums for Love Actually, in which his character picks up the instrument to impress his crush Joanna (Olivia Olson) at their school's Christmas concert.

"I did learn to play the drums for it,” he told The Sunday Post in 2017. “My dad’s a drummer and he taught me in my grandad’s basement bashing away on his old kit and trying to play along to 'All I Want For Christmas [Is You].'”

16. And yes, that really was Olson singing the Mariah Carey hit.

"Everyone thinks she is lip-synching, and she was 9 or 10 years old," screenwriter Freud said at the Montclair Film Festival in 2016, per the event's recap of her presentation, "but that was her.”

17. What's more, the scene where Joanna gives Sam a peck on the cheek at London's Heathrow Airport before she flies back to America marked her first on- and off-screen kiss.

"I was really nervous because I kind of had a crush on Thomas back in the day," the actress told E! News in 2016, "and I was also worried because I was taller than him."

The kiss clearly left an impression on both characters. In the 2017 Red Nose Day special, it's revealed that Sam reconnected with Joanna in New York and that they got engaged—with them flying back to London to ask Neeson's character Daniel for his blessing.

18. Another unforgettable scene is when the character Harry (played by the late Alan Rickman) is trying to buy a necklace for his secretary Mia (Heike Makatsch) without his wife Karen (Emma Thompson) knowing, but the jewelry salesman Rufus (Rowan Atkinson) is moving at a snail's pace.

And apparently, the Mr. Bean star was in no rush to finish filming the scene.

• “Rowan was just taking his time," Curtis remembered in the Diane Sawyer special. "So he would do 11-minute takes."
  
  19. At first, Atkinson's character was written differently in the script.
  
  "Originally Rowan's character over-wrapped the gift on purpose to stop Alan rickman being able to buy the necklace. Because he was an angel," Freud previously tweeted, adding in a separate post they "cut that bit" about him being an angel in the editing process.
  
  

20. One of the most heartbreaking parts of the movie is when Karen finds the necklace in Harry's coat pocket, thinks it for her and then unwraps a Joni Mitchell CD for Christmas instead—leading her to realize he bought the necklace for another woman.

After she puts on a smile for their children's Christmas concert, Karen tells Harry she knows what's going on. And while fans wondered if the couple remained married, Freud solved this mystery.

 "They stay together," she tweeted in 2015, "but home isn't as happy as it once was."

And Freud says Harry's relationship with Mia went beyond the necklace.

"DEFINITELY had an affair," she wrote, "i begged richard just to make it a flirtation, but no. the whole way."

21. With several other beloved rom-coms under his belt—including Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones's Diary—Curtis resurfaced a scene he'd cut in a previous film for Love Actually.

The scene stars a man named Colin (Kris Marshall), who is serving hors d'oeuvres at a wedding. In a failed attempt to flirt, he strikes up a conversation with a woman and tells her how bad the food is—except it turns out the woman is the caterer.

"This highly amusing scene coming up now about catering with this girl is a re-working of a highly amusing scene about catering, which bore remarkable resemblance down to the last line which was originally in Four Weddings and a Funeral," Grant, who appeared in both films, revealed while doing the director's commentary with Curtis, "which was one of my audition scenes, but which got cut from the final film."

In fact, Curtis admitted he forgot to change the name from Charles in Four Weddings and a Funeral to Colin in Love Actually in a line of the re-worked script.

22. Fed up with searching for love in the U.K., Colin decides to go to America and try his luck there. He flies to Wisconsin, where he meets a group of women at a bar, including one named Jeannie played by January Jones.

"January jones wrote half of her lines," Freud revealed in a tweet. "She was sooooo funny when we filmed that scene."

23. While there were several familiar faces in Love Actually, Freud revealed her and Curtis' kids also made a few cameos.

"THAT IS SCARLETT CURTIS THERE ON THE RIGHT," she tweeted about her daughter, who was dressed as one of the lobsters in the school's Nativity play (yes, you read that right). "NOT EVEN JOKING."

In addition, she noted the boy with the crown and Spider-Man face-paint in the Christmas play is their son Jake, with her writing, "I gave birth to him."

24. Looking back at the film two decades later, Curtis admits there are aspects of the film he wishes he could change.

"The lack of diversity makes me feel uncomfortable and a bit stupid," he admitted in the Diane Sawyer special. "I think there are three plots that have bosses and people who work for them."

The director has also expressed regret over the film's comments about Natalie's weight.

“I think I was behind, you know, behind the curve, and those jokes aren’t any longer funny," he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2023, "so I don’t feel I was malicious at the time, but I think I was unobservant and not as, you know, as clever as I should have been.”

25. While Love Actually features 10 different storylines, Curtis said he originally had more.

"At first, we had 14 different love stories, but the result was too long, so four ended up going, including two we'd actually shot," he told The Guardian. "One was based on a poster in Alan Rickman's office of two women in Africa. The camera actually went into the poster and heard them talking about their daughters' love lives. Another involved Emma Thompson's son getting into trouble at school and the camera following the harsh headmistress home."

In the since-released deleted scenes, the headmistress can be seen heading home to take care of her partner Geraldine, who is dealing with an illness and later dies.

Another deleted scene shows Sarah talking about family Christmas memories with her brother Michael. They ask each other how they're doing now. While Sarah says "everything's great," Michael gets real with her about his mental health struggles and says, "I'm in hell."

Even though Curtis decreased the number of storylines, he admitted stringing the remaining ones together was no easy feat.

"Although all the strands come together in the airport at the end, it still felt like making 10 separate films," he told The Guardian. "It was a massively difficult edit. The order I originally wrote it in didn't work at all, so we had to reorder it completely. It was a bizarre four-month game of 3D chess."

(E! and Universal Pictures are both part of the NBCUniversal family).