Last week, I was on an international flight with a selection of Christmas movies that were free to watch. At one point, I got up to use the restroom and as I walked back to my seat, I saw that the entire economy section of the plane was basically watching three different movies: Home Alone 2, Love Actually, and The Holiday. The woman sitting diagonally across from me was watching Love Actually with subtitles on. I am one of those fliers who raw-dog the flight map while doing other things, which in my case, became reading the subtitles as that woman played Love Actually. Yes, I acknowledge that this is weird, but when you’re on a plane for eight-plus daytime hours, you have to do what you can to pass the time.

Anyway, while creeping on my flight neighbor’s screening of Love Actually, I watched the famous cue card scene. It comes out of nowhere but is meant to symbolize that unspoken love that one person has for someone who is completely uninterested in them. Even if you haven’t seen the movie, that particular scene has been mimicked tons of times, most famously in 2016, with Kate McKinnon playing Hillary Clinton trying to warn us about Donald Trump. While the scene may be well-known, the context has always been a point of debate. During an interview with Variety, Keira Knightley talked about filming the famous cue card scene. In her opinion, the whole thing was “quite creepy.”

The Love Actually star—who played Juliet in the 2003 movie—shared that she had to re-shoot the Richard Curtis-directed Christmas classic’s iconic cue card scene with costar Andrew Lincoln (who played Mark) to make his grand gesture seem less “stalker-ish” for viewers.

“My memory is of Richard, who is now a very dear friend, of me doing the scene, and him going, ‘No, you’re looking at [Andrew] like he’s creepy,’” Keira told Variety in an interview published Dec. 6. “And I’m like, ‘But it is quite creepy.’”

That’s why Keira changed up her facial expression to try to improve the scene, recalling that she continued by “having to redo it to fix my face to make him seem not creepy.”

And while the moment—in which Mark shows up at the doorstep of Juliet, the wife of his best friend Peter (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), and confesses his love in hand-written cue cards—wound up becoming one of the most famous romantic scenes of the last two decades, the Oscar nominee still sees the clip as having a “creep factor” for another reason: She was only 17 years old when it was filmed.

“I knew I was 17,” Keira explained. “It only seems like a few years ago that everybody else realized I was 17.”

Of course, the Pride & Prejudice actress wasn’t alone in admitting the scene could read as inappropriate. Last year, Richard—who wrote the movie in addition to directing—revealed that he views Mark’s confession as a “bit weird” now.

“We didn’t think it was a stalker scene,” he told the Independent at the time. “But if it’s interesting or funny for different reasons [now] then, you know, God bless our progressive world.”

And Keira isn’t the only Love Actually star who wasn’t head over heels for one of their iconic moments in the film. Hugh Grant, who played newly elected prime minster David Grant in the flick, shared that he wasn’t thrilled to shoot his memorable celebratory dance to The Pointer Sisters song “Jump (For My Love)” after his character stood up to the U.S. president.

“I saw it in the script,” Grant said in 2022 for The Laughter & Secrets of Love Actually: 20 Years Later – A Diane Sawyer Special, “and I thought, ‘Well I’ll hate doing that.'”

[From Variety]

I honestly had no idea that Keira was only 17 when they filmed that movie. That fact alone is definitely creepy, and yeah, it makes an already questionable scene even weirder. It’s all well and romantic to watch a scene like that because we movie-goers already know that he’s ultimately harmless, but it could also have dangerous repercussions in the real world. Personally, I always thought that even though she knows and trusts him as her husband’s best friend, it was bonkers that Juliet runs after Mark to give him a kiss on the cheek.

Even then, I don’t think that’s the most problematic storyline in the movie because at least the characters were all supposed to be the same age with equal power dynamics. I take more of an issue with the Colin Firth and Hugh Grant storylines because of the power dynamics in play. The Emma Thompson/Alan Rickman (RIP) one involving the character Mia always felt like it was the most realistic while the John/Judy (Martin Freeman/Joanna Page) one always felt like the one to root for. I’m basically so split on this movie overall! I know so many people still actually love (see what I did there?) the movie in general, so I don’t want to yuck anyone’s yum. I just personally think that Love Actually is a product of its time. That said, it should have been a miniseries that could have fleshed out the characters to provide more context and feel less creepy.

Keira Knightley is shown earlier this month at the Black Doves premiere and in 2003 at the Love, Actually premiere. Photos credit: WENN/Avalon, Jeremy Kathrens/Avalon/Avalon, James Warren/Bang Showbiz/Avalon