“Seems like a few years ago that everybody else realized.” For Keira Knightley, this iconic scene from the hit Love Actually was creepy from the start
Keira Knightley pointed out a creepy aspect of the iconic scene from Love Actually that she believes audiences have long been unaware of.
Love Actually is a romantic comedy that audiences around the world have fallen in love with. The Christmas production has been popping up in many people's homes for years, even watched by entire families, although as it turns out, some people have some reservations about the film. Some realized them earlier, while others took time to pay attention to something that was obvious to Keira Knightley, who starred in the film, from the beginning.
Many people don't realize it, but at the time of the filming of Love Actually Keira Knightley was only 17 years old. This means that Andrew Lincoln, who plays Mark, who is in love with her, was 12 years older than the actress, as he was 29 at the time.
According to Knightley, this resulted in “a creep factor,” which, over time, also affected how the iconic scene from the film began to be perceived by audiences, who, one gets the impression, were long unaware of the age difference between the actors and how young Knightley was at the time.
The actress shared her thoughts on the subject during an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
The slightly stalkerish aspect of it – I do remember that. 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.
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 actress apparently recognized from the beginning the problematic side of the relationship between the character she played and Mark, due to the age of the actors playing the roles, who were 17 and 29 years old. But despite her awareness of the problem, Knightley did her job and played her role as it should be, despite her personal feelings.