FILM · 2003 · FRANCE
Love Actually
- Directed by
- Richard Curtis
- Runtime
- 135 min
- Studio
- Working Title, DNA Films, StudioCanal
109 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
Eight very different couples deal with their love lives in various loosely interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London.
Summary: TMDB
All facts (109)
- #001
While casting the role of Sarah, writer-director Richard Curtis auditioned many British women but kept saying, "I want someone like Laura Linney." The casting director finally snapped back, "Oh, for fuck's sake, get Laura Linney then." Linney later auditioned and won the part.
- #002
The airport greeting footage at the beginning and end of the film is real. Writer-director Richard Curtis shot for a week at Heathrow Airport with a crew of cameramen, and whenever they saw something suitable, they asked the people involved for permission to use the footage.
- #003
At around 58 minutes, the lake in which Lúcia Moniz and Colin Firth are "swimming" was actually only 18 inches deep, and they had to kneel and pretend to be in deeper water. It was also infested with mosquitoes. Colin Firth was badly bitten and his elbow swelled to the size of an avocado, requiring medical treatment.
- #004
Billy Bob Thornton accepted his role in the film without even reading the script; the accompanying letter asking him to be part of the ensemble made him so proud.
- #005
At around 43 minutes, a speech Hugh Grant gives in the film — praising Great Britain's virtues and refusing to bow to pressure from its long-time ally the United States — was etched into transatlantic memory as a satirical, wistful comment on the concurrent relationship with George W. Bush. Tony Blair responded in 2005: "I know there's a bit of us that would like me to do a Hugh Grant in Love Actually and tell America where to get off. But the difference between a good film and real life is that in real life there's the next day, the next year, the next lifetime to contemplate the destructive consequences of easy applause."
- #006
At around 10 minutes in, the idea of Mark (Andrew Lincoln) singing "All You Need Is Love" with the group at Peter's (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Juliet's (Keira Knightley) wedding surprise came from Jim Henson's funeral, which writer-director Richard Curtis also attended, where all the puppeteers brought their Muppets and sang a song.
- #007
Jack and Judy's job was a source of confusion for many viewers. The characters were using double lighting for a film shoot, so their job is to place themselves in the positions where the film's stars will later be, so that the lighting and camera crews can adjust the lights and focus the cameras on specific scenes without disturbing the stars during the hours needed to prepare a shot. Light doubles, unlike body doubles or stunt doubles, do not appear in the film, but they must have the same skin tone and physical size as the actor they are doubling, hence Jack's comment about doubling for Brad Pitt — although their faces do not look much alike, Martin Freeman and Brad Pitt have similar hair and skin tones.
- #008
Andrew Lincoln was initially unsure about his character because he thought the scene with the handwritten signs was "borderline stalker territory."
- #009
Writer-director Richard Curtis was initially working on two films, one about Prime Minister David (Hugh Grant) and one about Jamie (Colin Firth). When the stories turned out to be very similar, he combined them into a single film.
- #010
At around 1 hour 11 minutes, Laura Linney said she wished her character had not answered the phone while she was in Karl's (Rodrigo Santoro) apartment.
- #011
Knowing Billy Bob Thornton's rather unusual fear of antique furniture, Hugh Grant would sometimes, just before the cameras rolled, show Thornton a piece of antique furniture (plentiful in England) and take amusement in watching it drive him crazy.
- #012
When Thomas Brodie-Sangster was cast, he did not know how to play the drums. Fortunately, his father, Mark Sangster, plays the drums and taught Thomas how to play.
- #013
The credits at the end of the film mistakenly list Tessa Niles as the performer in the Christmas concert scene. Olivia Olson, who plays Joanna, the girl Sam falls in love with, does all of her own singing of "All I Want for Christmas is You" at the Christmas concert. She had such a great voice that writer-director Richard Curtis had it processed so it would sound more like a singing child's voice. *Olivia appears a little further down.
- #014
Lúcia Moniz (Aurelia) got the role as the result of a joke by a friend who was a casting director, and sent her photos to the film's casting director. Lúcia went to the casting and was eventually chosen.
- #015
According to writer-director Richard Curtis, they had to put Dame Emma Thompson in a "fat suit" to make her look heavier because she is actually a slim woman.
- #016
At around 1 hour 35 minutes, Andrew Lincoln (Mark) wrote the romantic cards. In 2013, Andrew recalled his exciting gesture in the film to Entertainment Weekly and explained: "That's my handwriting. It's funny, because the art department did it, and then I was like, 'Well, can I do it?' Because I like to think my handwriting's really good. It actually resulted in me having to trace the art department's, so it's my handwriting but there's a kind of pencil stencil underneath it."
- #017
At around 12 minutes, the scene in which Colin (Kris Marshall) accidentally insults the catering company's food to its face was actually written as a scene for Hugh Grant's character in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), but it was cut from that film.
- #018
Early in the casting process, Richard Curtis expressed interest in casting a real rock star for the role of Billy Mack. He considered David Bowie, Sting, Mick Jagger and Peter Gabriel for the part, but the producers thought a real rock star would make big demands about the script and music choices, and they persuaded Curtis to cast an actor instead.
- #019
Contains a major spoiler — show
For many years after the film's release, viewers debated whether Harry (Alan Rickman) cheated on his wife Karen (Dame Emma Thompson) with his co-worker Mia (Heike Makatsch). In December 2015, Emma Freud (the film's script editor and the life partner of writer-director Richard Curtis) confirmed on her Twitter account that it was indeed a full sexual relationship, not merely inappropriate and non-physical flirtation as some viewers assumed. Freud also confirmed that Karen and Harry stayed married after Karen discovered the affair, "but home isn't as happy as it once was."
- #020
Laura Linney shot this film in London, England, while working on Mystic River (2003) in Boston, Massachusetts. She crossed the Atlantic Ocean several times within a few months to complete her work on both films.
- #021
The 10 Downing Street seen in Love Actually is not the Prime Minister's actual residence but a replica. The exterior was built in the Shepperton Studios parking lot, and the interior was a constructed set. While preparing for the film, Richard Curtis and production designer Jim Clay were given a two-hour tour of the real Number 10 by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown (Prime Minister from June 2007 to May 2010). They were not allowed to take photographs or make drawings of the interiors and were surrounded by security throughout the tour, so the "Number 10" seen in the film was designed by Clay purely from memory.
- #022
The jewelry salesman Rufus (Rowan Atkinson) was originally meant to be an angel and to disappear as he walks away from Daniel (Liam Neeson) in the airport scene.
- #023
At around the 46-minute mark, Hugh Grant hated the dance scene because he did not think a Prime Minister would do such a thing.
- #024
Thomas Brodie-Sangster was thirteen when he played the ten-year-old Sam in Love Actually, and eight years later he was cast as a thirteen-year-old boy. In 2013, at the age of twenty-three, Brodie-Sangster began playing young Jojen Reed in Game of Thrones (2011).
- #025
At around the 59-minute mark, when Daniel says, "We need Kate and we need Leo and we need them now," a toothpick can be seen in his left hand as he says "now." Later, as he and Daniel lie on the couch, Sam has a toothpick in his mouth. What Richard Curtis called "this toothpick business" was a result of Liam Neeson never being without a toothpick after he quit smoking.
- #026
Claudia Schiffer was reportedly paid £200,000 (about $300,000) for a one-minute cameo. (This is not counted as a cameo, since those are *only* for people not listed in the credits, and she is listed in the credits.)
- #027
Love Actually originally included small scenes showing that Sam (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) was a great gymnast. The finale, in which he runs to the airport to see Joanna, was to include a long chase in which he dodged objects and people with a series of jumps and gymnastic moves. All hints of Sam's physical ability were ultimately removed, and the effects-heavy final scene was cut down to what appears in the film.
- #028
At around 1 hour 2 minutes, the video for Billy Mack's (Bill Nighy's) single "Christmas is All Around" is a nod to a series of memorable and very popular videos by Robert Palmer — "Addicted to Love," "Simply Irresistible" and "I Didn't Mean to Turn You On" — in which Palmer sings in a good suit, backed by an all-female band all dressed identically and dancing back and forth.
- #029
At around 53 minutes, in the DVD audio commentary, Richard Curtis says that the homemade video montage in which Mark (Andrew Lincoln) shows only close-ups of Juliet (Keira Knightley) from her wedding day was inspired by the ending of Cinema Paradiso (1988), in which the protagonist assembles all the kissing scenes censored from every film previously shown in the cinema.
- #030
Love Actually was the most-rented DVD in the UK in 2004.
- #031
Emma Thompson said she drew on the great heartbreak she suffered over her then-husband Kenneth Branagh's relationship with Helena Bonham Carter, with whom he had co-starred in and directed Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), for the role of Karen, the character who falls in love. That extramarital affair ultimately led to their divorce in 1995. Interestingly, Thompson and Bonham Carter had first played sisters together in Howards End (1992). In addition, Thompson, Branagh, Carter and Alan Rickman (Karen's husband) all appeared in various Harry Potter films; Rickman was part of all eight films, though the characters in question did not share many scenes.
- #032
In a 2017 interview published in Empire Magazine, writer-director Richard Curtis recounted that Universal Pictures president Stacey Snider told him the film would earn $50 million less in ticket revenue if he kept all the nude scenes in. Curtis, however, thought that in his youth he had gone to the cinema just to see a little nudity and did not want to disappoint his younger self.
- #033
In the version edited for broadcast on the ABC Family Channel in the US, the entire subplot of John and Just Judy (the characters in the ersatz "porn" film) was completely cut, and despite this and other cuts, the film aired with commercials at three hours.
- #034
Thomas Brodie-Sangster is Hugh Grant's second cousin. Grant's grandmother and Brodie-Sangster's great-grandmother were sisters.
- #035
At around 45 minutes, the babies Dame Emma Thompson holds up are Ken dolls dressed in clothes. Richard Curtis asked the prop department to take Ken and dress him in clothes. Thompson had a very hard time in the scene and said she could not lift the babies knowing they were Ken dolls in dresses, but she eventually gave in and shot the scene.
- #036
The producers noted that Colin chose Milwaukee, a relatively small city in the less densely populated Midwest region of the United States, rather than a more common location like New York or California, because places like Milwaukee are seen as more "exotic" to foreigners and because choosing a place like Milwaukee suited the personality of someone with Colin's more unusual outlook.
- #037
Writer-director Richard Curtis and other members of the production held a forty-five-minute meeting to decide what color underwear Aurelia (Lúcia Moniz) would wear in the lake scene.
- #038
Apart from Sam's running through the airport scenes and shots of people greeting one another, all the airport scenes were filmed on a constructed set, which cost a large portion of the film's budget. These scenes include Colin Frissell's (Kris Marshall) departure for and arrival in Wisconsin, Sam (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) shouting to Joanna Anderson (Olivia Olson) through the glass, and all footage of the actors in the airport.
- #039
In 2017, a handful of main cast members reunited for a one-off special event for Comic Relief. It aired on the BBC in March 2017. The sketch ran ten minutes and followed some cast members and their lives in 2017. One highlight was Hugh Grant dancing to Drake's "Hotline Bling."
- #040
Contains a major spoiler — show
At around 1 hour 4 minutes, a deleted scene revealed that Mark (Andrew Lincoln) is friends with Mia (Heike Makatsch) and that the gallery the company rented from her to organize the office Christmas party (with all its nude artworks) is her gallery. In the scene, she announces her plans to start a relationship with her married boss Harry (Alan Rickman). When Mark discourages her, she suggests starting a relationship with him, and Mark politely declines. The only remaining trace of this character connection in the film is that during the party, before Harry takes Mia to dance, he asks whether Mark is her boyfriend.
- #041
At around the 51-minute mark, when Juliet first watches the wedding video, Keira Knightley had to wear a hat to cover a huge spot that had appeared on her forehead the night before filming.
- #042
The priest at Peter and Juliet's wedding was a real priest.
- #043
Contains a major spoiler — show
At around 1 hour 55 minutes, when Jamie Bennett appears asking for the hand of the plump Portuguese sister, his line is subtitled as "But I've never seen him before." What he actually says in Portuguese is "But I've never seen him fatter," an idiomatic Portuguese expression used for "I've never seen him before."
- #044
This was Richard Curtis's directorial debut.
- #045
Olivia Olson (Joanna Anderson) played another love interest of Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Sam) in the television series Phineas and Ferb (2007), in which Brodie-Sangster voiced Ferb and Olson voiced Vanessa.
- #046
The school used for the Nativity concert at the end of the film is Elliott School in Putney, South West London, England, the school Pierce Brosnan attended until he was fifteen.
- #047
The word "actually" is spoken by various characters twenty-two times over the course of the film.
- #048
"Too Lost in You," written by Diane Warren and performed by Sugababes, was included in the UK version but was replaced by Kelly Clarkson's "The Trouble With Love" in the US release. Writer-director Richard Curtis was sorry that the British group's members Keisha Buchanan, Mutya Buena and Heidi Range missed the chance to be recognized in the US. To make up for it, he later placed them on the soundtrack of About Time (2013). Heidi Range named her daughter Aurelia after the character in this film.
- #049
At around 1 hour 23 minutes, the note accompanying Harry's gift to Karen ("Sorry I'm such a grumpy bugger… Bad Harry") was handwritten by Alan Rickman himself, as Richard Curtis also confirmed in the film's audio commentary.
- #050
The properties around the house where Jamie (Colin Firth) stays in France, including the pier built specifically for this film, were heavily damaged in a fire during the 2003 heat wave, but the house survived.
- #051
At around 19 minutes, after Sarah leaves Harry's office following a conversation about her feelings for her colleague Karl, two clocks showing the time in New York City and Brazil can be seen on the wall. Laura Linney (Sarah) is from New York and Rodrigo Santoro (Karl) is from Brazil.
- #052
On Brazilian film posters and VHS/DVD/Blu-ray covers, Bill Nighy's image was replaced with Rodrigo Santoro's.
- #053
Hugh Grant and Colin Firth were born one day apart. Grant on 9 September 1960 and Firth on 10 September 1960.
- #054
The character Natalie was originally named Martine. The name was changed to Natalie before Martine McCutcheon auditioned.
- #055
All four leads of Sense and Sensibility (1995) technically appear in this film; Hugh Grant, Dame Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman played lead roles, and Kate Winslet appeared in ready footage from Titanic (1997).
- #056
One of the working titles was "Love Actually is All Around," taken from The Troggs' "Love is All Around," written by the band's lead vocalist Reg Presley. Wet Wet Wet's alternative version, featured in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), stayed at number one in the UK charts for fifteen weeks in 1994, and Richard Curtis thought it would be fun to open this film with the same song that had distracted everyone nine years earlier. For this film it was reworked by Billy Mack (Bill Nighy), turning it into a Christmas song. The resulting shabby joke theme song, "Christmas is All Around," premiered in Britain in the hope that it would be "Number 1 for Christmas 2003."
- #057
In interviews, Andrew Lincoln has said that, looking back, his character Mark's behavior was creepy and inappropriate, and that he wished his scenes had been rewritten so that he seemed more reasonable and normal about his feelings for Juliet. In an interview in December 2024, Keira Knightley said she felt her character really was creepy, since the character was 17 and 12 years older than she was.
- #058
At around 43 minutes, after meeting with the President of the United States (Billy Bob Thornton), Prime Minister David (Hugh Grant) addresses the press, mentioning great things about Britain and sincerely bringing up "Harry Potter." Grant was to play Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) but left that film due to scheduling conflicts. Harry Potter's lead actors Dame Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy and Frances de la Tour appear in this film, though the latter is only seen in deleted scenes.
- #059
At around the 11-minute mark, a trombone player appears in the wedding scene.
- #060
Colin was originally meant to wear Green Bay Packers clothing in the scene where he returns to London Heathrow. The idea was dropped because the producers could not get permission from the National Football League.
- #061
Contains a major spoiler — show
At around the 15-minute mark, in Daniel's eulogy, he says one of his wife's joking requests was "bring Claudia Schiffer as my date to the funeral." Claudia Schiffer plays the mother of one of Sam's classmates, whom Daniel meets and takes an interest in near the end of the film.
- #062
The art gallery where Mark works was based on a real Southbank gallery called "La Guff." It specialised in showy but worthless black-and-white bottom paintings, some of which can be seen in the film.
- #063
Of the five "American dream girls" in the film, only three were born in the USA. Ivana Milicevic was born in Bosnia and later moved to the USA, and Elisha Cuthbert is Canadian.
- #064
Although Karen refers to David as her "older brother," Dame Emma Thompson is one year older than Hugh Grant.
- #065
At around 1 hour 24 minutes, in the scene in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a Budweiser is ordered even though Milwaukee is home to three of its major rivals: Miller, Pabst and Schlitz.
- #066
Contains a major spoiler — show
In a 2023 interview with The (London) Independent, Love Actually writer and director Richard Curtis said he understood why many viewers find the "cue cards" scene creepy: "He actually comes to his best friend's house and says to his best friend's wife, if she opens the door, 'I love you.' She nods. '[Even] I think it's a bit weird. I mean, I remember being surprised about seven years ago, I was going to interview someone and they said, 'Of course, we're mainly interested in the stalker scene,' and I said, 'What scene is that?' And then I was educated about it. All I can say is that at the time there were a lot of clever people involved in the film and we didn't think it was a pervy scene.'" On set, Andrew Lincoln told Curtis that the scene made his character look like a creepy stalker: "The slightly pervy side of it - I remember that. I have a memory of [director] Richard [Curtis], who is now a very close friend of mine, of me doing the scene and him going 'No, you're looking at [Lincoln] like he's creepy,' and me saying [in a dramatic whisper] 'But he is quite creepy.' And then I had to do it again to fix my face so he didn't look creepy…. I mean, there was a creep factor at the time, right? Also, I knew I was 17. Apparently everyone only realised I was 17 a few years ago."
- #067
When it came to casting the role of Prime Minister David, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Michael Gambon and Michael Crawford were possible candidates. None of the three was available during shooting, however (Hopkins was working on The Human Stain (2003), Gambon on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), and Crawford had returned to Broadway to appear in the American version of "Dance of the Vampires").
- #068
Mia (Heike Makatsch) was to be the girl who cheats on Jamie (Colin Firth) before Sienna Guillory was cast as his unnamed girlfriend.
- #069
Simon Pegg was considered for the role of Rufus.
- #070
Liam Neeson and Laura Linney had previously appeared in the Broadway adaptation of The Crucible. They would later appear together in Kinsey (2004) and The Other Man (2008). Liam Neeson would later walk Laura Linney down the aisle at her 2009 wedding. They do not share a single scene in this film.
- #071
Gregor Fisher took the role of Joe at the insistence of Richard Curtis's wife, Emma Freud. Apparently, after watching Gregor in the remake of The Railway Children (2000) with her children, Emma liked him so much that she insisted Richard cast him as Joe, and according to Gregor Fisher, Richard "did what he was told!"
- #072
On German film posters and VHS/DVD/Blu-ray covers, Martine McCutcheon's image was replaced with Heike Makatsch's.
- #073
Dame Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant play brother and sister in this film. They had previously played lovers in Sense and Sensibility (1995).
- #074
Lynden David Hall appears singing "All You Need Is Love" in the church.
- #075
The cast includes three Oscar winners: Colin Firth, Dame Emma Thompson and Billy Bob Thornton; and five Oscar nominees: Liam Neeson, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Laura Linney.
- #076
Most of Edward Hardwicke's role was cut from the final release.
- #077
Joe Alwyn auditioned for the role of Sam but lost out to Thomas Brodie-Sangster. It would take him another thirteen years to land his first role in a film.
- #078
At about 1 hour 17 minutes, while Harry and Karen shop for gifts in a department store, Karen tells Harry to stay "occupied for ten minutes" while she goes elsewhere to buy him a present. Despite the intended joke that Rowan Atkinson's jewellery-shop character takes an extremely long time to gift-wrap the necklace Harry secretly buys for Mia, the entire sequence from the moment Karen leaves Harry alone to her reappearance lasts only two minutes and forty-three seconds.
- #079
In 2020, Dua Lipa and Jimmy Fallon performed a cover of "Christmas Is All Around Me" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (2014).
- #080
In the Czech Republic, the film was known as "Heavenly Love" (an idiom meaning "the greatest love possible").
- #081
At the 26th minute, Daniel has a huge "Launderette" sign. Annie returns to Lisbon. At about 1 hour 20 minutes, Tony is shown living above a launderette with the same "Launderette" sign and a delicatessen named "Lisboa".
- #082
Contains a major spoiler — show
At about 16 minutes, Daniel's deceased wife Joanna appears in a slideshow during the funeral scene.
- #083
Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Colin Firth and Dame Emma Thompson all appeared in Nanny McPhee (2005).
- #084
Contains a major spoiler — show
Whenever Sarah (Laura Linney) talks to her brother on the phone (three separate times), she says: "Fire away."
- #085
Karen (Dame Emma Thompson) and Harry (Alan Rickman) have a son named Bernard. In real life, this was the name of Alan Rickman's father, who died when Rickman was only eight years old.
- #086
Jo Whiley and Wes Butters appear in the film as miniature voices, as the disc jockeys then at Radio 1. Emma Freud worked as a screenwriter on this film and was also a Radio 1 DJ in 1994.
- #087
Hugh Grant and Colin Firth appeared in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), but only Firth appeared in Bridget Jones's Baby (2016).
- #088
Alan Rickman and Rowan Atkinson were reportedly considered for the villains in Home Alone (1990).
- #089
In Russian-speaking markets, the film's title is "Realnaya lyubov" ("Real Love").
- #090
Many of the actors in this film worked together on other projects. Colin Firth and Hugh Grant appeared in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001). Grant, Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman appeared in Sense and Sensibility (1995). Thompson, Rickman and Bill Nighy appear in the Harry Potter films. Nighy and Martin Freeman appeared in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Wild Target (2010) and the "Blood and Ice Cream" trilogy: Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007) and The World's End (2013). Liam Neeson and Keira Knightley appeared in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999). Emma Thompson and Rowan Atkinson appeared in The Tall Guy (1989).
- #091
Contains a major spoiler — show
In the film's final seconds, the screen fills with scenes of people reuniting with their loved ones, each one shrinking. In the last second they form a large "heart" (or "valentine").
- #092
This was Emma Thompson's first Christmas film. Her next Christmas film was Last Christmas (2019).
- #093
Laura Linney and Liam Neeson appeared in Kinsey (2004), The Big C (2010) and The Other Man (2008).
- #094
Billy Bob Thornton and Martin Freeman worked together on the first season of Fargo (2014).
- #095
Archive footage from this film is shown on a television set in the 2024 Netflix animated film That Christmas (2024). Keira Knightley and Andrew Lincoln are recognisable in the scene where Mark arrives at Juliet's door with his written declaration of love.
- #096
At about 5 minutes, Karen expresses surprise that (at least) two lobsters are among the characters in the Christmas nativity play at her daughter's school ("there was more than one lobster present at the birth of Jesus?"). Although various small lobsters native to the Mediterranean exist (Palinurus elephas, also known as the common spiny lobster), their habitat does not extend as far east as the land currently known as Israel. Moreover, since Jesus's family was Jewish and shellfish such as lobster are forbidden to observant Jews who follow kosher dietary rules, Karen is right that it is very unlikely any lobster was present at the birth of Jesus.
- #097
Martin Freeman, Alan Rickman and Bill Nighy would later appear in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005).
- #098
This was Olivia Olson's first film appearance.
- #099
Liam Neeson and Emma Thompson would later appear together in Men in Black: International (2019).
- #100
The title line "Love Actually" is first spoken at the 1:52 mark.
- #101
Billy Bob Thornton has only a few minutes of screen time in this film because of his commitments to Bad Santa (2003), which was released two weeks after Love Actually.
- #102
One of the carpenters is named Paul Carpenter.
- #103
Joanna Page and Julia Davis also appeared together in Gavin & Stacey (2007).
- #104
Christopher Parker was offered a prominent role but chose instead to take a part in the British soap opera EastEnders (1985).
- #105
Edward Hardwicke (credited as Sam's grandfather) and Martin Freeman (credited as John) each played Dr. John Watson in separate Sherlock Holmes TV series: Edward Hardwicke opposite Jeremy Brett, and Martin Freeman opposite Benedict Cumberbatch.
- #106
Kate Ashfield was considered for the role of Sarah.
- #107
Contains a major spoiler — show
Most of the relationships in the film involve one person romantically attached to someone they barely know or have never really spoken to. David (Hugh Grant) tells Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) he is in love with her almost immediately after being introduced. Sarah (Laura Linney) is in love with Karl (Rodrigo Santoro) even though their only exchanges are office greetings and goodnights. Jamie (Colin Firth) falls in love with Aurélia (Lúcia Moniz) and proposes to her despite a language barrier that makes spoken conversation all but impossible. Sam (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) tells his stepfather Daniel (Liam Neeson) that he is in love with Joanna (Olivia Olson). Joanna (Olivia Olson) is a girl with whom he has shared so little real communication or conversation at school that "she doesn't even know my name." In the film's most debated segment, Mark (Andrew Lincoln) confesses his love to Juliet (Keira Knightley) even though he has never spoken to her; in fact, he never speaks to her even in that scene, since his declaration is made silently with signs on poster boards rather than spoken aloud. John (Martin Freeman) and Judy (Joanna Page), one of the few couples whose relationship develops through extensive conversation, are frequently cut from the film's TV broadcasts because of nudity and/or time constraints.
- #108
At around the 31-minute mark, a painting of Sir Winston Churchill appears in the background.
- #109
Karen's grief at learning that her husband has betrayed her by buying the necklace for a coworker mirrors Emma Thompson's own experience of betrayal. In 1994, Thompson's first husband, Kenneth Branagh, began an affair with Helena Bonham Carter on the set of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein while still married to Thompson.
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