Insane Keira Knightley age gap in Love Actually as movie added to Netflix
Christmas is around the corner, which means one thing - Christmas films galore.
Everyone's got their favourite movie, but when it comes to festive romcoms featuring ensemble casts, there aren't many which come close to being as popular as Love Actually.
The 2003 classic features several Hollywood heavyweights, with Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman, and many more making up the film's long cast list.
Rowan Atkinson even has a brief cameo in a characteristically hilarious scene.
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But as the years have gone on, viewers of the once glorious Christmas film have realised that while it's meant to be about love, some of the storylines are just plain creepy.
Whether it be Colin Firth's character falling in love with someone who can't speak English or Hugh Grant's character, who is the literal Prime Minister, falling in love with one of the employees at No.10, one particular storyline takes precedence for its weirdness.
Arguably featuring the film's most iconic scene, it's the story of Juliet (Kiera Knightley), Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and Mark (Andrew Lincoln).
You'll more than likely recall the scene where Mark confesses his love for Juliet by using several cue cards, in what might be one of the cheesiest moments in film history.
It's since been revealed that the scene could have featured an aeroplane with banners or meadows filled with flowers, but it was decided that signs were the best way of being 'flirted with', according to film creator Richard Curtis.
That's not the oddest part, though.
Juliet is married to Peter, with Mark being his best friend, though before the famous cue card scene, the newlywed bride actually discovers that Mark is in love with her.
When rewatching the footage he filmed at their wedding, she sees that he exclusively filmed her at the ceremony, instead of anything or anyone else - again, creepy, but not the creepiest.
It's the fact that Knightley was actually 17 at the time of shooting, with Ejiofor being 26 and Lincoln being 30.
Yes, that's a 13-year gap between the man holding the cards and the teenager, who is married to someone nine years older than her anyway, standing in front of him.
It means that Knightley was actually closer in age to Thomas Brodie-Sangster, who played Sam, a boy so in love with his classmate that he broke several laws by running through security at an airport to confess his love to his crush before she moved back to the US.
He was 13 in real life, but looked about 10-years-old in the flick.
The cue card scene will remain iconic for one reason or another, though Knightley has since admitted that she actually thought the scene was a bit peculiar in the first place.
Speaking to the LA Times, she admitted: "My memory is of [director] Richard [Curtis], who is now a very dear friend, of me doing the scene, and him going, 'No, you’re looking at [Lincoln] like he’s creepy', and I’m like [in a dramatic whisper], 'But it is quite creepy'.
"And then having to redo it to fix my face to make him seem not creepy."
The 40-year-old added: "I mean, there was a creep factor at the time, right? Also, I knew I was 17. It only seems like a few years ago that everybody else realized I was 17."
The cue cards were tacky anyway.
Topics: Christmas, Film, Richard Curtis
Joshua Nair