Fans shocked by Keira Knightley’s Love Actually age gap

It wouldn’t be Christmas without yet another rewatch of feel-good rom-com Love Actually - but fans have been left shocked after discovering the age gap between two of its stars.

Richard Curtis’ 2003 festive classic, gives us all a glimpse into the tangled and complicated love lives of numerous people in the run up to Christmas.

Among those we see on screen are baby-faced Sam (played by Thomas Brodie-Sangster) who while grieving the loss of his mum finds himself falling head over heels with his classmate; and Juliet, who gets hitched to her partner at the beginning only to later find out his best pal has got a huge crush on her.

While you may be familiar with the characters, you might not know that’s there is just five years between the stars - Knightley was just 18 at the time of filming, while Brodie-Sangster was 13.

Hard to believe, given that Knightley's character appears to be a mature married woman while little Sam looks about 10, isn't it?

Back in 2019, Twitter user Madeleine Lloyd-James posted side-by-side movie stills of both Brodie-Sangster and Knightley, which highlighted the disparity between the ages of the two characters.

She wrote: "Yearly reminder that there is only a five year age gap between Thomas Brodie-Sangster and Keira Knightley in Love Actually."

Universal Pictures

Although the small age gap between the two is not quite as startling now - Brodie-Sangster is now 32 while Knightly is 37 - in the twisted world of Love Actually it's pretty hard to believe.

And the online community totally agrees, with the tweet garnering over 19,000 shares, nearly 110,000 likes and a whole host of comments.

One user wrote: "He looks five and she looks 25!" while another added: "I just looked this up because I was 100 percent certain this was false. I researched it and now I think that you have rigged the internet to lie to me."

Universal Pictures

Some people took the opportunity to point out some other troubling statistics about the movie, with one person posting: "Just did a quick Wiki. She'd have been, what, 17 or 18 at the time? And was getting married to a bloke in his late 20s. Yikes. As if that film didn't have enough problems in my mind. That's another for the pile."

Crazy stuff, hey? At least you can use this as an excuse to go and watch Love Actually for the billionth time. For research purposes, obviously.