Emma Thompson explained how she achieved heartbreaking Love Actually scene
Topics: Film and TV, Christmas
Gregory Robinson
Featured Image Credit: dpa picture alliance / LANDMARK MEDIA / Alamy Stock Photo
Topics: Film and TV, Christmas
Emma Thompson revealed how a real-life experience influenced her performance in that heartbreaking Love Actually scene.
Thompson portrays the wife of the late Alan Rickman's character who heartbreakingly realises her husband has purchased a gold necklace for another woman, revealing he’s having an affair.
The scene continues to bring viewers to tears almost two decades after it premiered and Thompson has since revealed she drew from personal experience.
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The 63-year-old was married to Kenneth Branagh between 1989 and 1995 and during their marriage, the iconic director had an affair with Helena Bonham Carter.
“That scene where my character is standing by the bed crying is so well known because it's something everyone's been through,” Thompson told the Telegraph.
“I had my heart very badly broken by Ken. So I knew what it was like to find the necklace that wasn't meant for me.
“Well it wasn't exactly that, but we've all been through it.”
Last month the actor, director and screenwriter spoke about being ‘blinded’ to the realities of Branagh’s infidelity.
"I was utterly, utterly blind to the fact that he had relationships with other women on set,” she told the New Yorker. “What I learned was how easy it is to be blinded by your own desire to deceive yourself.”
“I was half alive. Any sense of being a lovable or worthy person had gone completely.”
Branagh and Bonham Carter were in a relationship until 1999. He went on to marry Lindsay Brunnock in 2003, while Thompson is currently married to Greg Wise, whom she also married in 2003.
The Sense and Sensibility star said she holds no ill feelings towards Bonham Carter. "You can’t hold on to anything like that," she told The Sunday Times in 2013. "It’s pointless. I haven’t got the energy for it. Helena and I made our peace years and years ago... she’s a wonderful woman."
Richard Curtis’ ensemble rom-com also stars Hugh Grant, Bill Nighy, Gregor Fisher, Keira Knightley, Andrew Lincoln, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Andrew Lincoln and Colin Firth.
There’s also Martin Freeman, Joanna Page, Kris Marshall, Billy Bob Thornton, Rowan Atkinson and January Jones, among many others – oh, and Ant and Dec too.
It has a 64 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with most earlier reviews praising its warmth and sweet sentiment.