“Love Actually” is a romantic comedy that is characterized by its particular Christmas mood.
Let’s find out more about “Love Actually”.
- Love Actually is a 2003 Christmas-themed romantic comedy film.
- It was written and directed by Richard Curtis.
- It features an ensemble cast, composed predominantly of British actors, many of whom had worked with Curtis in previous film and television projects.
- It was mostly filmed on location in London.
- The screenplay delves into different aspects of love as shown through ten separate stories involving a wide variety of individuals, many of whom are shown to be interlinked as the tales progress.
- The story begins five weeks before Christmas and is played out in a weekly countdown until the holiday, followed by an epilogue that takes place one month later.
- It was an international co-production between the United Kingdom, the United States and France.
- The film was released in the United States on 14 November 2003 where it received mixed reviews.
- One week later, it opened in the United Kingdom, to positive reviews.
- Love Actually was a box-office success, grossing $248 million worldwide on a budget of $40–45 million.
- It received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
- Frequently shown during the Christmas season, the film has proved more popular with audiences than critics, and it has been discussed as being arguably a modern-day Christmas staple.
- In general it won 10 awards.
- The movie receives 27 nominations.
- Kris Marshall returned his paycheck for the scene where the three American girls undress him. He said he had such a great time having three girls undress him for twenty-one takes that he was willing to do it for free, and thus returned his check for that
- When casting the part of Sarah, writer and director Richard Curtis auditioned a great many British girls, but kept saying, “I want someone like Laura Linney”.
- The casting director eventually snapped and said, “Oh, for fuck’s sake, get Laura Linney then.” Linney then auditioned and got the part.
- The airport greeting footage at the beginning and end of this movie is real.
- Writer and director Richard Curtis had a team of cameramen film at Heathrow airport for a week, and whenever they saw something that would fit in they asked the people involved for permission to use the footage.
- The lake in which Lúcia Moniz and Colin Firth are “swimming” was actually only eighteen inches deep and they had to kneel down and pretend to be in deeper water.
- It was also over-run by mosquitoes, and Colin Firth was badly bitten, and his elbow swelled up to the size of an avocado, requiring medical attention.
- The idea for Mark’s (Andrew Lincoln’s) surprise of the band singing “All You Need Is Love” at Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Juliet’s (Keira Knightley’s) wedding came from Jim Henson’s funeral, which writer and director Richard Curtis attended, where all of the puppeteers brought their Muppets and sang a song.
- The credits at the end of this movie incorrectly list Tessa Niles as the performer in the Christmas concert scene. (Joanna – Sam’s crush), does all of her own singing in “All I Want for Christmas is You” at the Christmas concert.
- She had such an amazing voice that writer and director Richard Curtis had it edited so it sounded more like a child singing.
- Andrew Lincoln (Mark) wrote the romantic cards.
- In 2013, Andrew reminisced about his climactic gesture in this movie with Entertainment Weekly, and revealed, “It is my handwriting. 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.”
- Lúcia Moniz (Aurelia) got the part as a result of a joke by a friend of hers, who is a casting director, and sent her photos to this movie’s casting director. Lúcia went to the casting and ended up being chosen.
- Laura Linney said she wished that her character didn’t pick up the phone while Karl (Rodrigo Santoro) was in her apartment.
- Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) and his manager Joe (Gregor Fisher) are the only characters in this movie whose storyline doesn’t directly connect to any of the others. All of the other main characters are linked via family, friendship, or work.
- Knowing about Billy Bob Thornton’s quite unusual fear of antique furniture, Hugh Grant would sometimes flash a piece of antique (which is abundant in England) in front of Thornton just before the cameras rolled, and watch him freak out in amusement.
- Knowing about Billy Bob Thornton’s quite unusual fear of antique furniture, Hugh Grant would sometimes flash a piece of antique (which is abundant in England) in front of Thornton just before the cameras rolled, and watch him freak out in amusement.
- Thomas Brodie-Sangster didn’t know how to play the drums when he was cast.
- Fortunately for him, his father, Mark Sangster, plays the drums and taught Thomas how to play them.
- According to writer and director Richard Curtis, they had to put Dame Emma Thompson in a “fat suit” to make her appear heavier because she is actually a thin woman.
- Rufus – Jewellery Salesman (Rowan Atkinson) was initially supposed to be an angel, and disappeared as he walked away from Daniel (Liam Neeson) in the airport scene.
- Despite their differences in looks, Keira Knightley (Juliet) is only five years older than Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Sam) in real life.
- Laura Linney filmed this movie in London, England, while she was working on Dark River (2003) in Boston, Massachusetts.
- She flew across the Atlantic Ocean several times within few months, in order to complete her work on both movies.
- When Daniel says “We need Kate and we need Leo and we need them now”, a toothpick can be seen in Daniel’s left hand as he says “now”. Later, Sam has a toothpick in his mouth while he and Daniel are lounging on a couch. What Richard Curtis describes as “this toothpick business” was a result of Liam Neeson never being without a toothpick after he gave up smoking.
- Thomas Brodie-Sangster, who was thirteen years old when he played Sam in this movie, was cast as a thirteen-year-old again eight years later.
- Brodie-Sangster started playing the young teen Jojen Reed on Game of Thrones (2011) in 2013, when he was twenty-three.
- Andrew Lincoln was initially unsure about his character, as he thought the scene with handwritten signs was “borderline stalker territory”.
- 10 Downing Street in this movie is not, of course, the actual Prime Minister’s residence, but a replica.
- The exterior was created in the Shepperton Studios car park and the interior is a set.
- In preparation for this movie, Richard Curtis and production designer Jim Clay were escorted on a two-hour tour of the actual Number 10 by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown (Prime Minister June 2007 to May 2010).
- They were not permitted to take photographs or make sketches of the interiors, and throughout the entire tour they were flanked by security.
- The “Number 10” that appears in the movie was designed by Clay, solely from memory.
- Writer and director Richard Curtis was originally working on two movies, one about Prime Minister David (Hugh Grant), and the other about Jamie (Colin Firth). When the plots turned out to be so similar, he merged them into a single movie.
- In the version edited and broadcast in the U.S. on the ABC Family Channel, the entire subplot of John and Just Judy (the characters in the ersatz “porn” movie) was completely edited out, and, even with those and other cuts, this movie ran three hours with commercials.
- Writer and director Richard Curtis, and other members of the production, had a forty-five minute meeting to determine what color underwear Aurelia (Lúcia Moniz) would wear for the lake scene.
- Hugh Grant hated the dancing scene, because he didn’t think a Prime Minister would do something like that.
- “Love Actually” was the most rented DVD in the U.K. in 2004.
- The video for Billy Mack’s (Bill Nighy’s) “Christmas is All Around” single is a reference to a series of memorable, and very popular, videos that Robert Palmer had done – “Addicted to Love”, “Simply Irresistible”, and “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On” – in which Palmer sang in a good suit, backed up by an all-female band, all dressed alike, and dancing in a back-and-forth manner.
- For her one-minute cameo, Claudia Schiffer received a reported £200,000 (roughly $300,000 U.S.).
- The word “actually” is spoken twenty-two times by various characters throughout this movie.
- ACTUALLY this movie was the directorial debut of Richard Curtis.
- Richard Curtis wanted Michael Parkinson to appear as a talk show host, and Michael accepted without hesitation.
- In Daniel’s eulogy, he says that one of his wife’s joking requests was to “bring Claudia Schiffer as my date to the funeral.” Claudia Schiffer played the mother of one of Sam’s classmates, whom Daniel meets, and develops an interest in, near the end of this movie.
- The school used for the Nativity concert at the end of this movie is Elliott School, Putney, South West London, England, and is where Pierce Brosnan went to school until he was fifteen.
- A line from this movie was quoted by King Harald V of Norway in a speech made during a visit by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in February 2018.
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