41 Fun Facts About Love Actually

Who made a directorial debut with the 2003 film Love Actually?

Richard Curtis had only written films for other directors before this one. He began with 14 love stories and dropped four, two of them after they had already been shot.

Which actor plays David, the newly elected Prime Minister?

Hugh Grant plays David, and so dreaded the Prime Minister's dance through Downing Street that he dodged every rehearsal. The scene was left until the very last day of filming.

Love Actually opens and closes with scenes at which London airport?

Heathrow, and the hugs in its arrivals hall are real: the crew filmed travellers with hidden cameras, then chased them down for permission to use the footage.

Billy Mack's novelty Christmas single is a reworked version of which song?

Love Is All Around was a knowing pick: Wet Wet Wet's cover for Four Weddings and a Funeral had spent 15 weeks at number one, and the director liked the idea of a compromised star like Billy Mack cashing in on it.

Jamie's housekeeper Aurélia speaks only which language?

Portuguese: neither understands a word the other says, so both secretly take lessons. Jamie proposes in halting Portuguese, and Aurélia answers in the English she learned 'just in cases'.

Sam decides to win Joanna's attention by learning which instrument for the school concert?

Drums: Sam practises so he can back Joanna at the Christmas concert, then dashes through airport security to say goodbye before she flies home to America.

Which comic actor plays Rufus, Love Actually's maddeningly thorough gift-wrapping salesman?

Rowan Atkinson plays Rufus, whose elaborate gift-wrapping nearly exposes Harry; early drafts wrote Rufus as an angel, which is why he turns up at exactly the right moments.

Jamie discovers that his girlfriend is having an affair with whom?

His brother: Jamie walks in on the pair, then retreats heartbroken to a cottage in France to write, which is where he meets Aurélia.

Karen is devastated when she finds evidence that Harry bought Mia what?

A necklace: Karen finds the box in Harry's coat and assumes it is her own Christmas present, so the gift she actually unwraps tells her everything.

Which actor plays Daniel, Love Actually's recently widowed stepfather?

Liam Neeson plays Daniel, who coaches his stepson Sam through a first crush. In the 2017 charity sequel a grown-up Sam surprises him by the Thames with Joanna, who asks for Sam's hand in marriage.

Who plays Harry, the design-firm boss married to Karen?

Alan Rickman plays Harry, who is very nearly caught buying a secret present because the salesman will not stop adding flourishes to the gift-wrap.

Which actress plays Juliet, the bride at the centre of Love Actually's wedding?

Keira Knightley plays Juliet, who assumes her husband's best man cannot stand her until she watches his wedding video and finds it is filmed almost entirely of her.

Which real-life TV presenting duo appear as themselves interviewing Billy Mack?

Ant & Dec play themselves, and Billy Mack greets one of them as 'Ant or Dec', a joke that works because viewers really do mix up the inseparable presenting pair.

What does Mark use to tell Juliet he loves her on her doorstep in Love Actually?

Cue cards: Mark flips through his confession without a word, expecting nothing in return, and walks away. He turned up with a fresh stack in the 2017 charity sequel.

Billy Mack's music video is a tribute to which 1986 Robert Palmer video?

Addicted to Love: Billy Mack fronts a 'band' of pouting, identically dressed models, just as Robert Palmer did. He cheerfully tells the nation his single is rubbish, and it still reaches Christmas number one.

In Love Actually's US cut, which singer's 'The Trouble with Love Is' replaces a Sugababes track?

Kelly Clarkson's single doubled as an advert for the film in America, with a video that cuts in scenes from Love Actually. British cinemas kept the Sugababes' 'Too Lost in You' in that spot.

Which group recorded a cover of 'Jump (For My Love)' for the Love Actually soundtrack?

Girls Aloud covered 'Jump' for the soundtrack, though the Prime Minister dances to the Pointer Sisters' original. The scene was first written to a Jackson 5 song the filmmakers could not get.

In which London department store does Rufus gift-wrap Harry's secret purchase in Love Actually?

Selfridges on Oxford Street: Harry has slipped away from Karen to buy a present for his secretary, which is why the salesman's slow, showy wrapping has him sweating.

In a storyline cut from Love Actually, Anne Reid's headmistress went home to her dying partner, played by whom?

Frances de la Tour played Geraldine. The scenes showed the school's fierce headmistress going home to nurse her, and the director has said he regrets cutting the film's only gay love story.

Which US state does Colin fly to in Love Actually, convinced its women will adore his British accent?

Wisconsin: Colin is proved right in the very first bar he walks into, where women played by Elisha Cuthbert and a pre-Mad Men January Jones adopt him on the spot.

Which singer's CD does Karen unwrap in Love Actually instead of the gift she was expecting from Harry?

Joni Mitchell: Karen slips away to the bedroom and cries to 'Both Sides Now', a scene filmed with a single unmoving camera while the actress walked in and wept 12 times in a row.

What job brings the shy couple John and Judy together in Love Actually?

Body doubles on a film set: John and Judy spend their working days simulating the stars' love scenes, yet off camera they are almost too shy to ask each other out.

Joanna brings the house down at the school concert singing which song?

All I Want for Christmas Is You: the young Olivia Olson sang it so flawlessly that the filmmakers coached her to sound less polished, afraid audiences would never believe the voice was hers.

What relation are Karen and David, the Prime Minister, in Love Actually?

Sister and brother: it is at his niece's school nativity play that the Prime Minister's own romance with Natalie is revealed to the whole audience.

Who plays the swaggering visiting US President in Love Actually?

Billy Bob Thornton plays the President whose bullying provokes the Prime Minister's defiant speech, a scene British politicians were still being measured against years later, Tony Blair among them.

In Love Actually, which actor plays Karl, the colleague Sarah silently adores?

Rodrigo Santoro, a star in his native Brazil, plays Karl. His one night with Sarah is cut short when she keeps answering calls from her brother, and the romance never recovers.

Which American actress plays Sarah, whose romance with Karl keeps being interrupted by her phone, in Love Actually?

Laura Linney got the part after the director kept telling his partner he needed 'a Laura Linney type'. She asked why he didn't simply ask Laura Linney, so he wrote the actress a letter.

Before playing Natalie, Martine McCutcheon was famous as Tiffany Mitchell in which soap?

EastEnders made her a star, and the director wrote Natalie for her after seeing it. He even called the character Martine until just before the read-through, so she wouldn't guess the part was already hers.

Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Love Actually's Sam, went on to voice a main character in which cartoon?

Phineas and Ferb: he voiced Ferb for four seasons, and his Love Actually crush came too. Olivia Olson, who played Joanna, voiced the villain's teenage daughter Vanessa on the same show.

Lúcia Moniz, Love Actually's Aurélia, had represented her country at which event in 1996?

Eurovision Song Contest: Lúcia Moniz was a 19-year-old singer when she took her country to sixth place, its best result until it won in 2017. Seven years on, the film gave her a part with barely a line of English.

Which actor plays Love Actually's ageing rock star with a shameless Christmas single?

Bill Nighy thought he was only doing a casting director a favour by reading the part at a rehearsal. To his surprise he was offered the role, and it won him a BAFTA.

Which future star of The Favourite auditioned as a child for the role of Sam in Love Actually?

Joe Alwyn was talent-spotted at a local drama class and read scenes with the film's star and its director, but didn't get the part. He made no film until 2016, when his debut was the lead in an Ang Lee drama.

Which 1990s crime film did Love Actually's director name as an inspiration for it?

Pulp Fiction: the director loved films that juggle many stories, and also named Robert Altman's Nashville and Short Cuts as models. 'This film is my Pulp Fiction,' he later said.

In Love Actually, Billy Mack walks out of a celebrity Christmas party to spend the night with whom?

His manager: with a Christmas number one in the bag, Billy Mack realises long-suffering Joe has been the most important person in his life, and chooses a quiet night with him over the party.

Which actor plays Jamie, the writer who flees to a cottage in France, in Love Actually?

Colin Firth's storyline was first planned as a whole film of its own, as was the Prime Minister's. The director then decided he would rather fold both into one film with many stories.

Which actor plays Peter, Juliet's new husband and Mark's best friend, in Love Actually?

Chiwetel Ejiofor had a supporting part here and ten years later starred in 12 Years a Slave. The director says seeing so many of the cast become famous has made it 'a different movie now'.

In Red Nose Day Actually, Mark introduces his new wife, played by which supermodel?

Kate Moss appears as herself on Juliet's doorstep: proof that Mark, who walked away from that door with nothing in the first film, has done rather well since.

In Red Nose Day Actually, David dances through Downing Street again, this time to which song?

Hotline Bling: the director chose the Drake hit simply because he likes it, although the dance was the part of the first film that his leading man most hated shooting.

Which actor plays Sarah's husband in the US Red Nose Day Actually's added happy ending?

Patrick Dempsey appears only in the American broadcast. The scene took one extra day to shoot and finally gives Sarah, left on her own in the original film, a happy ending.

Which Love Actually star was left out of the 2017 reunion short because her storyline would have been 'too sad'?

Emma Thompson and the director agreed that Karen's next chapter could not be played for laughs on a charity night. 'It would be sad, too sad,' she said, and called it absolutely the right decision.

Love Actually's director gave his daughter Scarlett a cameo in the nativity play, dressed as what?

A lobster: Scarlett is 'Lobster number 2', and she is not the only family cameo. Her brother is the boy in the Spider-Man mask, and her grandmother plays the Prime Minister's cleaner.