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Production Information

General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed – but I don’t see that – seems to me that love is everywhere.

Igniting laughter, wreaking havoc, breaking hearts, daring commitments, forcing choices, catapulting spirits, forging inroads, creating risks—ecstatic, exciting, unexpected, unwelcome, inconvenient, inexplicable, inelegant, unequalled. Love actually is all around. From the new bachelor Prime Minister () instantly falling in love with a refreshingly real member of the staff (MARTINE McCUTCHEON) moments after entering … To a writer () escaping to the south of France to nurse his re- broken heart who finds love in a lake… From a comfortably married woman () suspecting that her husband () is slipping away… To a new bride () mistaking the distance of her husband’s best friend for something it’s not… From a schoolboy seeking to win the attention of the most unattainable girl in school… To a widowed stepfather () trying to connect with a son he suddenly barely knows… From a lovelorn junior manager () seizing a chance with her long-tended, unspoken office crush… To an aging “seen it all, remember very little of it” rock star () jonesing for an end-of-career comeback in his own uncompromising way… Love, the equal-opportunity mischief-maker, is causing chaos for all. These lives and loves collide, mingle and climax on Eve— again and again and again—with romantic, hilarious and bittersweet consequences for anyone lucky (or unlucky) enough to be under love’s spell. Love Actually – Production Information

Acclaimed screenwriter (Four Weddings and a Funeral, , ’s Diary) now steps behind the camera for his directorial debut on his latest project, Love Actually—the ultimate that weaves together a spectacular number of love affairs into one amazing story. Curtis is re-teamed with producers DUNCAN KENWORTHY and Working Title’s and —the filmmakers responsible for some of the most popular looks at modern love in all its guises, including Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’s Diary. The powerhouse cast brought together for this look at love and laughter also includes , , , KRIS MARSHALL, THOMAS SANGSTER, , LUCIA MONIZ, and many others. Joining Curtis and producers Kenworthy, Bevan and Fellner are an esteemed group of behind-the-camera talent, including director of photography MICHAEL COULTER, B.S.C. (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Sense and Sensibility), production designer JIM CLAY (Captain Corelli’s Mandolin), editor NICK MOORE (Notting Hill, , About a Boy), costumer JOANNA JOHNSTON (The Sixth Sense, Contact), composer CRAIG ARMSTRONG (William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!, The Quiet American) and casting director , C.D.G. (Notting Hill, Gosford Park).

About the Production DANIEL Hey. Great show. Classic drumming.

SAM Yeah, thanks. Plan didn’t work though.

DANIEL Tell her then.

SAM Tell her what?

DANIEL

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Tell her that you love her.

SAM No way! Anyway, they fly tonight.

DANIEL Even better—you’ve got nothing to lose—and you’ll always regret it if you don’t. I never told your Mum enough—I should have told her every day—because she was perfect every day. You’ve seen the films, kiddo—it ain’t over till it’s over.

SAM Okay—let’s do it, Dad. Let us go get the shit kicked out of us by love…

It is a lucky thing for comedy lovers everywhere that Richard Curtis did not turn out to be a better actor. The screenwriter of such hits as the television series and Mr. Bean and feature films Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill had cooled on his initial career choice of journalism by the time he reached Oxford University and instead decided to pursue acting. It was then that Curtis began to pen the comedy sketches in which he would perform because, as he remembers, “It turned out I was totally bland and had no talent, and the only way of getting onstage was to write the things I would act.” While regularly turning out his sketch comedy, he met up with another actor, Rowan Atkinson, for whom Curtis also began to write. The partnership lasted through Oxford and then continued out in the “real world” of show business, with the two collaborating on projects for Atkinson and others to perform. The pair was instrumental in the creation of the BBC’s Not the Nine O’Clock News (Curtis’ first job writing for television); the popular topical sketch comedy show ran for four series. With no more lofty goals than “just wanting to write a good sitcom,” Curtis and Atkinson then created Blackadder, the internationally popular and award- winning series for the BBC, which also ran for four series, each set in a different century. It was about this time that Curtis, the successful television comedy writer, began to take his career, “even mildly seriously. Then I decided to write a film like some of the films that I love—small intimate little movies with love in them.” Curtis’ first feature film outing was , a comedy about an American actor trying to make a go at a career in British theater after playing second banana to a

3 Love Actually – Production Information successful comedian (played by Atkinson). It also featured the film debut of an English actress named Emma Thompson and was produced by Tim Bevan. “Richard is wonderful at creating those moments where embarrassment and joy collide. He brings everything he learned during years of sketch and television comedy writing to his film work—it’s a deft and fine touch, combining humor and pathos without either one ever taking center stage for too long,” observes Bevan. The writer himself adds, “I do seem to have written a great deal about love. But I mean if you look at the world, there are huge amounts of love and affection, and yet so much of art portrays the darker side of humanity. When I look around the world I notice a lot of things that are rather gorgeous, lots of people with kind hearts.” Following more collaborative work between Curtis and Atkinson (including such projects as a holiday telefilm about a boy and a genie and the worldwide television phenomenon of Bean), Curtis wrote another small intimate movie with love in it, about a group of friends, acquaintances and lovers meeting and re-meeting at a series of social ceremonies. He sent a copy of the to producer Duncan Kenworthy. Kenworthy recalls, “Richard gave me a copy of Four Weddings and a Funeral and I read it and told him it was the best thing he’d ever written. I also told him I couldn’t produce it because, at the time, I was on staff at the Henson Company, but that I’d really love to help him work on it.” As the project evolved, Kenworthy took a leave from the company in order to produce the movie and joined Working Title co-chairmen Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, who served as executive producers. The brilliantly successful film went on to earn more than $250 million worldwide and Oscar® nominations for Best Film and Best Original Screenplay. Fellner says, “It sounds like such a cliché, to say that something is a ‘feel-good’ film. But that’s what we had with Four Weddings and a Funeral. We started out being perceived as this little British film, but the response to it just kept building and expanding. In the end, it became this enormous hit that sort of revived the fashion of the ‘feel-good’ romantic comedy.” After Four Weddings, “a Richard Curtis comedy” was planted even more firmly into the lexicon of movie business jargon.

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Kenworthy explains, “I think the hardest thing to achieve in a comedy is something that Richard seems to manage effortlessly—to make you laugh and care at the same time. He’s not really into ridicule. It’s this quality that often blinds people to the rudeness of his jokes, and vice versa. The first seven words of Four Weddings were not ‘Oh, no, I’m late for the wedding.’ The level of profanity was pretty radical for a romantic comedy in 1994, but it was still a movie that people didn’t mind watching with their grandmothers.” It was while the group was working on another film (Richard writing, Duncan producing and Tim, Eric and Richard executive producing) about love and fame— Notting Hill—that the idea for Love Actually began to emerge. Kenworthy remembers, “Richard usually gets the idea for his next film while he’s hanging around the set of his last one, so it was when we were working on Notting Hill that he was dreaming up Love Actually. He said he’d had an idea for something that would touch on lots of people’s lives. Richard had promised himself and the family that they would do something very special in the year 2000, and he and Emma and the kids went off to Bali for six months. Something ‘special’ for Richard was not working. And during his walks along the beach in Bali to exercise his damaged back, he was dreaming up ideas for this film.” Richard says, “Love Actually is meant to be a real spoiling experience. I tried to work out the extra bits of plot and get straight from ‘A’ to ‘F.’ It’s like watching the edited highlights of several stories, yet put together, they all combine to an overall story—even though there are a lot of different ingredients, they form one cogent taste.” Curtis’ story on the genesis of the project is less clear, but echoes Kenworthy’s take. He remarks with a smile, “I can’t remember how Love Actually started. I think it may be that I decided that films take me such a long time—about three years, in the end—and I thought that if I wanted to go on writing romantic films, I would spend the rest of my life doing it. So I decided that I would try to write nine or 10 of them all at the same time. I went away on a long holiday with my family and every day, during my walk, it was my job to come up with a story. I would think around the world that I knew, of little incidents from my past and the lives of people I knew, and slowly the storyline for Love Actually came to me.”

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Tim Bevan observes, “Working Title has succeeded on the strength of the relationships we have built, and we’re proud of that. For us to have begun very early on with Richard and continued with him up to this point—I can’t imagine a more satisfactory arrangement. The arrival of Love Actually was just a natural evolution, not only for Richard, but for us as well.” Somewhere before/during/after the script for Love Actually began to emerge, the idea of Curtis directing the project also surfaced. “I said to Richard, at one point during Notting Hill,” says Kenworthy, “‘You know, it’s either going to have to be you or me directing the next one.’ I’m never surprised when a writer wants to direct his own work. It’s a genuinely difficult thing for a writer to hand over his work to a director to interpret. That’s why as a producer, I think of myself as of the script, making sure that everyone working on a film is working on the same film with the same interpretation of the script—because, generally speaking, the writer isn’t there.” Except on a Curtis film. Richard explains, “I’ve been an unusual writer in that I’ve been allowed to be on the set every minute of every day of every film that I’ve ever done.” In addition to being a constant presence on the sets and in the editing rooms of his films, Curtis had also been, since 1987, co-producing the BBC’s live fundraising telecasts—all invaluable experience for the filmmaker about to launch into his directorial debut. Kenworthy observes, “Richard’s always had the skills. Comic Relief is a fantastic training ground for working with actors. And he thinks in the round about everything—if the crew ask questions about whether a character wears glasses, where he would live, or what sort of pictures he would have on his wall, he’s always had those answers to hand.” Curtis jokingly adds, “I think other directors were finding me hard to work with and I decided if anyone was going to suffer with me as an interfering writer, it might as well be me.” All forces in filmmaking in their own right, the re-combination of Curtis, Kenworthy and Working Title’s Bevan and Fellner made for a dream situation when it

6 Love Actually – Production Information came time to filling the roles of the seemingly multitudinous cast—the combined rolodexes alone could provide endless possibilities for casting choices. Though several of the faces in Love Actually are longtime collaborators (including Grant, Thompson and others), many are new additions to the Curtis/Kenworthy/Working Title troupe. Kenworthy admits that while Curtis had specific actors in mind when penning selected parts, everyone was required to audition for the filmmakers. “Richard definitely had certain actors in mind for certain roles this time, which had never happened before, not even on Notting Hill, but he still wanted to cast and cast and cast. One of the things we both learned from during Four Weddings is that you see everybody and you keep on looking and testing and casting up until the last minute, until you’ve got the perfect mix. That was all the more necessary with the balance of such a large cast in Love Actually,” tells Kenworthy. The director/screenwriter offers, “Love Actually was a huge amount of fun to cast, because normally there aren’t enough roles to cast—if I have this actor then I can’t have that actor, that sort of thing. But in this film there are around 20 leading roles and everybody has a really substantial story to tell. So the casting process was a delight.”

The Prime Minister & The Secretary

PRIME MINISTER You live with your boyfriend . . . husband . . . three illegitimate but lovely children?

NATALIE No, I’ve just split up with my boyfriend actually, so I’m back with my Mum and Dad for a while.

PRIME MINISTER Oh, I’m sorry.

NATALIE No, that’s fine. I’m well shot of him. He said I was getting fat.

PRIME MINISTER I beg your pardon?

NATALIE

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He says no one’s going to fancy a girl with thighs the size of big tree trunks. Not a nice guy, actually, in the end.

PRIME MINISTER Right. Goodness. Well, well. You know, being Prime Minister, I could just have him killed.

NATALIE Thank you, sir – I’ll think about it.

The idea of writing a film about a prime minister had first occurred to Curtis more than 20 years ago, after Conservative Edward Heath had served in the office from 1970- 74. The writer had mused that it would have been compelling if the character of the prime minister had fallen in love with someone outside of the norm…say, a spiky-haired, 22 year-old blond girl. Curtis was interested in seeing the politician as a man, an “ordinary bloke—why shouldn’t the panic of love set in for a man who’s responsible for our health, education and transport? I wanted to contrast the responsibility and the seriousness of the job with that blind ‘what-the-hell-do-I-do’-ness of love.” Curtis also admits that he thought it would be enjoyable for Hugh Grant to play the role (“since he’s played such feckless people in my movies until now”). The actor, star of both Four Weddings and Notting Hill, did not see an immediate fit when he first read Curtis’ work. He remembers, “With Four Weddings and a Funeral, I remember taking the script away to Australia where I was doing a film, before we started shooting it, feeling that I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t hear that voice at all. When I came back and started rehearsing the film, I started listening to Richard just talking in the course of rehearsal and I realized that that voice is him. It is quite a unique balancing act that he brings off between London nasty and actually being quite positive about things.” In describing what is so special about Curtis’ work, Grant appreciates the author’s humorous and deft verbal touch and comments, “The comedy is hugely important in the success of Richard’s work, but equally important is this very rare thing of actually quite liking life. What I admire is that he just completely goes for it in this film and is determined to lay out his optimism in front of the world—I think people actually do quite

8 Love Actually – Production Information want that. And, if you really stop for a moment and think about it, it’s as good a take on the world as ‘the glass half-empty’ view.” Grant was happy to take on the role of the PM in love with his tea lady and also welcomed involvement in a piece that featured such a relatively large cast. (He off- handedly adds, “A cast of thousands. I don’t know any actors who aren’t in this film, actually.”) For the object of the Prime Minister’s deep and instantaneous affection, the filmmakers chose Martine McCutcheon (described as “a great television heroine” by Curtis). McCutcheon, who became a household presence with her three-year run on the popular continuing drama EastEnders, observes, “What’s interesting to me is that this is about different types of love with their different challenges and different temptations— that there’s love all around us all the time. That’s kind of a romantic view, but it’s also true as well. The script is written in such a real way. There are those embarrassing moments when you love someone and those moments when nothing else matters. Richard’s really captured that—he is guaranteed to make you laugh at a moment where you feel like you are going to cry. I’d say that’s kind of his stamp.”

The Stepdad & The 11-Year-Old Stepson

DANIEL So, what’s the problem, Sammy-o? Maybe . . . school – are you being bullied? Or is it – I don’t know – something worse – can you give me any clues at all?

SAM You really want to know?

DANIEL I really want to know.

SAM Even though you won’t be able to do anything to help?

DANIEL Even if that’s the case.

SAM

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Okay. The truth is…I’m in love.

DANIEL Sorry?

SAM The truth is that I’m in love and there’s nothing I can do about it and it just keeps getting worse.

DANIEL Aren’t you a bit young to be in love?

SAM No.

DANIEL Okay, right. Well, I can’t deny it – I’m a little relieved.

SAM Why?

DANIEL Well, you know I thought it might be something worse . . .

SAM Worse than the total agony of being in love?

DANIEL Oh. Yeah, you’re right. Total agony.

One of the storylines challenging the standard presumption that love stories deal exclusively with romantic love takes place between a recently widowed man, Daniel, and his now motherless stepson, Sam. Curtis wanted to look at a story that deals “not just with people falling in love for the first time, but what love is like as it goes on.” Now a father, the filmmaker drew from this newer aspect of his life when creating the look at Daniel and Sam, “two boys who start off a long way apart and end up very close together.” For Liam Neeson, cast as Daniel, the opportunity to work with Curtis provided an opportunity for the leading man to stretch different, lighter acting muscles. Neeson comments, “I’ve always admired Richard’s writing and was terribly chuffed that he thought of me for this. There is a kind of gravitas to the character, which

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I’m drawn to, but there are also chances to be light, and a little silly, which I loved doing. Richard has caught an aspect of that side of humanity in the script—that one minute you can be terribly sad, and then be able to flip and be ‘happy’ and smiling. That’s the stuff of life.” Following his mom’s death, Sam isolates in his room, leaving Daniel feeling even worse for not being able to bolster the boy. Daniel eventually finds that it is love, not grief (or rather the grief of unrequited love) that has driven Sam into seclusion. The young actor Thomas Sangster was cast opposite Neeson in the role—Sam was the sixth acting job for Sangster since entering the business just two years prior, and he thoroughly enjoyed his work on the set, particularly learning (from his real-life musician dad) to play the drums.

The Writer & The Housekeeper

AURELIA (in Portuguese) What kind of book is it? Kind. Kind…

SHE POINTS TO THE PAGES AND MIMES LAUGHTER, TEARS AND A HEART.

JAMIE Ah.

HE MIMES KNIFE – MURDER.

AURELIA (in Portuguese) Ah—thriller…murder…

JAMIE Yes. Si. Crime. Murder.

AURELIA (in Portuguese) Scary?

SHE MIMES A SCARED FACE. HE MIMES BACK AN UNCERTAIN HAND.

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JAMIE Sometimes scary—sometimes not…Mainly, scary how bad the writing is.

AURELIA (in Portuguese) I must get back to work.

SHE MIMES CLEANING.

And then maybe later you will take me home.

SHE POINTS TO 6 O’CLOCK ON THE CLOCK AND THEN MIMES DRIVING. HE NODS ‘YES.’

JAMIE My favorite time of the day, driving you.

AURELIA (in Portuguese) The saddest part of my day, leaving you.

Curtis’ character of Jamie (brought to life by Colin Firth) also draws on its author’s life, as Jamie is a writer. His story addresses the rejuvenative powers of love, as Jamie falls out of love with his unfaithful girlfriend and sequesters himself in the south of France, where he hopes to write a novel and mend his heart. A young Portuguese girl, Aurelia (played by native singing star Lucia Moniz), is hired to clean the villa and the two tentatively begin to get to know each other—despite the fact that Aurelia speaks no English and Jamie constantly embarrasses himself in a variety of languages, none of them Portuguese. The actor, renowned for his performances as two Mister Darcy’s (Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones’s Diary), was intrigued by the script’s premise and offers, “The piece as a whole is a rather ambitious exercise to tell all these different kinds of love stories. It’s also a very ambitious exercise to use the idea of the September 11th phone calls as a starting point, with the observation that they were all to do with love of one kind or another—that if you have one chance to say something to somebody at the end of your life, no matter what sort of person you are, no matter what sort of life you’ve led, no matter how awful you’ve been, it seems that that one thing you would

12 Love Actually – Production Information communicate would be some kind of message of love. It’s a very provocative thought and it’s a big exercise to attempt to illustrate something of that."

The Dreamer & The Dreamboat

HARRY Tell me, exactly, how long it is that you’ve been working here?

SARAH Two years, seven months, three days and, I suppose, what – two hours?

HARRY Right. And how long have you been in love with Karl?

SARAH Sorry?

HARRY How long have you been in love with Karl, our enigmatic chief designer?

SARAH Ahm – two years, seven months, three days and, I suppose, an hour and thirty minutes.

HARRY I thought as much.

SARAH Do you think everybody knows?

HARRY Yes.

SARAH Do you think Karl knows?

HARRY Yes.

SARAH That is bad news.

HARRY I just think perhaps now is the time to do something about it.

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SARAH Right. What sort of thing did you have in mind?

HARRY How about ask him for a drink – and then maybe after twenty minutes casually slip into the conversation the fact that you love him totally and would like to marry him and have lots of sex and babies.

SARAH You know that?

HARRY Yes. And so does Karl. Think about it. For all our sakes.

SARAH Certainly – excellent. Will do. Thanks, boss.

Actress Laura Linney had come to Curtis’ attention in several projects, notably in her performance in You Can Count on Me, and he was enthusiastic to cast her as Sarah, an office worker with a not-so-secret crush on a colleague (). Curtis says, “I kept saying, as we were auditioning, ‘We need someone like Laura Linney in this part,’ till our casting director just cracked and said, ‘Why don’t we ask Laura Linney, then?’ She was just so perfect in that role. She seemed to me to be a very radiant and wonderful person, who fills those around her with a sense of goodness and rightness. It was the right quality for Sarah, who is in love with a guy in her office but has a family situation that makes it impossible for her to ever genuinely commit.” Linney found an easy connection to Sarah and her emotional truth and explains, “I think that love can be a choice and that love can be unexpected…it can be hoped for and it can be unselfish. I think the thing that I take the most comfort in is that love has a power of its own and that it can come into your life when it’s least expected or most needed and transform things in ways that you never thought possible. You always know that it’s out there—when you realize that you actually have it, it’s just a comforting fact.”

The Husband, The Wife & The Other Woman

KAREN

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It was a good night—though I felt fat.

HARRY Oh, don’t be ridiculous.

KAREN It’s true. Nowadays the only clothes I can get into were once owned by Pavarotti.

HARRY I always think Pavarotti dresses very well.

KAREN Mia’s very pretty.

HARRY Is she?

KAREN You know she is, darling. Be careful there.

One of the couples at the center of Love Actually—Karen and Harry, a married couple with two children—have grown overly comfortable with their love for each other. In drawing their story, Curtis wanted to investigate “the whole idea of what happens when domesticity is interfered with.” The director sought two actors for whom the task of playing a long-term couple would be second nature and cast Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman (who had previously worked together in several projects, including Sense and Sensibility and The Winter Guest) in the roles. Rickman says, “It’s good to work with people that you’ve worked with before, when you know, like and trust them. Emma Thompson’s playing my wife, in a sense, meant that we almost didn’t have to rehearse the relationship—not that we’re married, but we do know each other well and we’ve worked together a few times now.” In explaining his and Thompson’s on-screen counterparts, Rickman says, “Karen and Harry both have very busy lives and that often leads to little chinks in the armor…and into one of those chinks steps a young woman called Mia who works in Harry’s office. It’s just like a moment in time—you turn your head one way and one thing happens, turn another way and something else happens—but like perhaps a lot of men he had a weak moment, weak enough to give in.”

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Thompson relishes her reuniting with so many of her colleagues and observes, “Richard’s a master at this kind of light material that also has a wealth of hidden depth. The stories are cross sections of different lives that all line up, either thematically or tangentially. It was fabulous to team up with Richard and Hugh and Alan and everyone again.”

The Rock Star & The Manager

DJ So Billy—welcome back to the airwaves—new Christmas single—cover of “.”

BILLY Except we’ve changed the word “love” to “Christmas.”

DJ Yes. “Christmas Is All Around.” Is that an important message to you, Bill?

BILLY No, not really, Mike—Christmas is for people with someone they love in their lives.

DJ And that’s not you?

BILLY That’s not me, Michael—when I was young and successful, I was greedy and foolish and now I’m left with no one, wrinkled and alone.

DJ Wow. Thanks for that, Billy.

BILLY For what?

DJ Well, for actually giving a real answer to a question. Doesn’t often happen here on Radio Watford, I can tell you.

BILLY Ask me anything you like—I’ll tell you the truth.

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DJ Okay—here’s one—how do you think the new record compares to your old classic stuff?

BILLY Come on, Mikey, you know as well as I do that the record’s crap. But you know, wouldn’t it be great if Number One this Christmas wasn’t some smug teenager— but an old ex-heroin addict searching for a comeback at any price?

Versatile and well-respected stage and screen actor Bill Nighy was cast to play veteran rock musician Billy Mack—a little the worse for wear but still rallying for a post- burnout comeback. Billy and his longtime (and long-suffering) manager, Joe (), have maneuvered the rocky road of Billy’s career together and Joe is steering his client’s attempt to end up on the record charts with a Christmas-themed re-tooling of a previous hit entitled “Christmas Is All Around” (actually Wet Wet Wet’s “Love Is All Around,” which was featured in Four Weddings and a Funeral). Like his fellow actors, Nighy admits to not only being a fan of Curtis but also to being a committed romantic and confesses, “I’m disabled by romanticism, and I think most people are, aren’t they? I think you have to be in some kind of trouble not to be, really.” Billy’s story also differs from the usual M.O.R. love story in that it shows another guise of love, platonic and non-romantic. Curtis explains, “Something occurred to be when me were writing Blackadder, which was just the idea that if you work with somebody, you can—without knowing it—end up having spent your life with somebody that you never intended spending your life with. I just wanted to look at that curiosity of professional relationships, that you spend more time with your co-worker than you do with your wife.” One of the most charming aspects of Billy is his absence of pretense (often present in those that have truly “been there, done that”), which Curtis drew from “seeing John McEnroe being interviewed or Bob Geldof talking about politics—they would say something and you would think, ‘Oh my god, so that’s the truth,’ suddenly not coated with the varnish of convenience. Billy has no interest in actually selling his records, he just wants to have a good time.”

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The Best Man & The Happy Couple

PETER AND JULIET ARE SITTING WATCHING TELEVISION. THE DOORBELL RINGS. JULIET GETS UP TO GET IT. SHE LEAVES THE LIVING ROOM, GOES THROUGH A LITTLE CORRIDOR AND OPENS THE FRONT DOOR. IT’S MARK.

JULIET Oh, hello.

HE MIMES “SHHH.” SHE DOES. HE HAS A BUNCH OF BIG WHITE CARDS, LIKE BOB DYLAN IN HIS FAMOUS VIDEO. ON THEM, MARK HAS WRITTEN STUFF IN CLUMSY FELT PEN. THE FIRST ONE READS “SAY IT’S CAROL SINGERS.”

PETER (V/O) Who is it?

JULIET It’s carol singers.

PETER (V/O) Give them a quid and tell them to bugger off.

MARK BENDS AND PUSHES THE BUTTON ON A SMALL TAPE PLAYER AT HIS FEET. IT STARTS TO PLAY A TAPE OF YOUNG, BAD CAROL SINGERS, SINGING SILENT NIGHT. HE’S THOUGHT THIS THROUGH. HE PRODUCES THE REST OF THE CARDS, ONE BY ONE:

WITH ANY LUCK BY NEXT YEAR

I’LL BE GOING OUT WITH ONE OF THESE GIRLS

A CARD SHOWING PICTURES OF THE FIVE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN IN THE WORLD.

BUT FOR NOW, LET ME SAY

WITHOUT HOPE OR AGENDA

JUST BECAUSE IT’S CHRISTMAS

(AND AT CHRISTMAS YOU TELL THE TRUTH)

TO ME YOU ARE PERFECT

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AND MY WASTED HEART WILL LOVE YOU

UNTIL YOU LOOK LIKE THIS

A CARD SHOWING A PICTURE OF A DISINTEGRATING MUMMY.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

HE GIVES HER A LITTLE THUMBS UP—AND TURNS AWAY, TAKING THE BOOGIE BOX, WITH SILENT NIGHT GETTING FAINTER.

SUDDENLY A TAP ON HIS SHOULDER. HE TURNS. JULIET HAS COME DOWN THE PATH AND GENTLY KISSES HIM ON THE LIPS. HE SMILES AND WALKS AWAY.

MARK Enough. Enough now.

Combining both the themes of truth and the balance of domesticity is the triangle Curtis creates with newlyweds Peter () and Juliet and Peter’s best friend (and best man), Mark. Mark (Andrew Lincoln) has become so adept at denying his true feelings for his best friend’s girl (Keira Knightley) that she and her new husband both believe that Mark dislikes Juliet. Curtis exploits his pointillistic approach and boils down the entire arc of the story to just a few scenes—an entire sweet, funny, touching relationship in short bursts that speak volumes. Knightley enjoyed honing a character in such an economical way and says, “It is so beautifully written, Richard’s really excelled himself on this one. It’s a challenge to tell the entire story in a few scenes—I’ve never really come across something like this before. And it’s been a pleasure to play.”

The Sad-Act, The Movie Stand-Ins & The Others

COLIN I’ve just worked out why I can never find true love.

TONY Why’s that?

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COLIN It’s English girls. They’re stuck up, you see—and I’m primarily attractive to girls who are, you know, cooler, game for a laugh—like American girls. So I should just go to America—I’d get a girlfriend there instantly. What do you think?

TONY I think it’s crap, Colin.

COLIN No, that’s where you’re wrong. American girls would seriously dig me with my cute British accent.

TONY You don’t have a cute British accent.

COLIN Yes, I do. I’m going to America.

TONY Do not act on this whim, Colin. You’re a lonely, ugly arsehole, and you must accept it.

COLIN Never. I am Colin, God of Sex. I’m just on the wrong continent, that’s all.

Not content to limit his ingredients, the screenwriter/director includes several other different pictures of the variations on human love into his on-screen recipe: Colin, a goofy young sandwich vendor’s (Kris Marshall) search for the woman of his dreams, who he believes most definitely lives in America, most probably ; the relationship that begins between a couple of movie stand-ins (played by Martin Freeman and Joanna Page) who hesitate to reveal their sweet and growing emotions despite the fact that they are totally naked while they’re working; and a mysterious figure (Rowan Atkinson), with a penchant for inserting himself into the lives of those around him. A frustrated assistant director (Abdul Salis) trying vainly to be the voice of reason to his over-optimistic best friend; an American President (Billy Bob Thornton) who has a way of taking what he wants; a smoky voiced secretary (Heike Makatsch) who has no problem going for what she wants; and a ten-year-old Christmas pageant star (Olivia

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Olson) with the voice of an angel—these are just a few of the additional characters who play their parts in the panoramic world created by Curtis. The filmmakers gathered Working Title alums—all top-notch talents—and a few fresh faces to work behind camera, including production designer Jim Clay, editor Nick Moore, costumer Joanna Johnston and composer Craig Armstrong. Curtis set Love Actually in the city he has called home (off and on) for the last two decades, London, but also includes jaunts to Marseille (the airport, a restaurant, Aurelia’s house) and a villa in Vidauban, France (Jamie’s retreat)—a change for the writer/director (and a setting which underlines the difficulties facing the very British Jamie in such a very foreign place). “Throughout my career, I’ve been proud of the fact that I’ve never had a day of filming outside of London—I’d never taken any of my characters outside of the city and I thought I’d been very wise about that. But then after one of week of filming in Marseille, with gorgeous surroundings and lovely dinners, I realized that I had made a terrible, terrible mistake,” tosses Curtis. “Now, I’m never going to set anything closer to London than Morocco.” Principal photography began on September 2, 2002 and continued for 13 weeks, with shooting on soundstages and on locations in and around London (private residences, various businesses, a church, a chapel, department store, a school, a boating base, the South Bank and even a racecourse building standing in for an American airport). Also, Curtis conceived of the opening and closing scenes happening in a place that truly demonstrates his point behind Love Actually—an arrivals hall at . He remembers, “We were shooting a film in Los Angeles and I had to stand at the airport for about an hour waiting for a package. It was an extraordinary sight to see— these really ordinary faces of people looking bored while they waited suddenly exploding with all of this love and affection. You could see the complexity of their relationships right there in their faces, and that’s the kind of truth I’m trying to show.” By bookending the film this way, Kenworthy hopes moviegoers who have looked into the lives of the characters are brought back into the context of the real world, reminded that “everyone in a crowd has a special story, a real story, a love story.”

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Curtis closes, “I’m very haunted by what constitutes being ‘realistic’—if I had to say, to me The Sound of Music seems to be quite a realistic piece of work. That film, which is accused of being totally saccharine, says two things: that good people hated the Nazis, which they did; and that lots of people fall in love and love their children, which they do. So there seems to me to be more truth to that than something that’s called a searingly realistic drama, because all over the world, every minute of every day, people are falling in love. I say that no matter how dark the world gets, the actual texture of life has a lot to do with love.”

General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed – but I don’t see that – seems to me that love is everywhere.

Often it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy – but it’s always there – fathers & sons, mothers & daughters, husbands & wives, friends & strangers.

If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that love actually is all around . . .

Universal Pictures and StudioCanal Present A Working Title Production, In Association with DNA Films. Starring Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Laura Linney, Liam Neeson, Martine McCutcheon, Rowan Atkinson. The casting is by Mary Selway, C.D.G. The music is by Craig Armstrong. The co-producers are and Liza Chasin. The costume designer is Joanna Johnston. The line producer is Chris Thompson. The production designer is Jim Clay. The director of photography is Michael Coulter, B.S.C.; the editor is Nick Moore. The film is produced by Duncan Kenworthy, Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. Love Actually is written and directed by Richard Curtis. ©2003 Universal Studios. www.loveactually.com

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