Everyone’s favourite holiday rom-com is making a comeback, but sadly not all the stars are on board.
Beloved Brit actress Emma Thompson, who played Karen, won’t be reprising her role in the upcoming Love, Actually reunion special. The reason? Because it’s just “too soon” after the death of her co-star Alan Rickman, who died January of 2016 from cancer.
“Richard [Curtis, the film’s director] wrote to me and said, ‘Darling, we can’t write anything for you because of Alan,’ and I said, ‘No of course, it would be sad, too sad,'” she said to The Press Association about her on-screen husband Alan.
“It’s supposed to be for Comic Relief but there isn’t much comic relief in the loss of our dear friend really only just over a year ago.”
But that doesn’t mean Emma isn’t throwing her support behind the short film, which will show what the original characters are up to now it’s 2017, 14 years after the original story was told.
“We thought and thought but it just seemed wrong,” she added.
However, our other Love Actually faves Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley, Colin Firth and Rowan Atkinson will appear in the 10-minute special, which has been dubbed Comic Relief, Actually.
“It’s fun and going to be really great to see everyone again,” Andrew Lincoln, who played Keira’s secret admirer on the show, tells Entertainment Weekly. “It’s very exciting. It’s a very cool thing.”
Despite Emma’s absence, fans are still in store for some magical scenes when the special airs in the UK on March 24. We hear there could even be a wedding.
Thomas Brodie-Sangster, who played Sam, and Olivia Olson, who played Joanna – the American exchange student Sam was in love with – did look cosy when filming scenes in London’s South Bank earlier this month.
“I can’t tell you much about where Joanna and Sam are nowadays, because obviously we need you to watch,” Olivia tells The Fix. However, in regards to those rumoured wedding bells, she says, “Maybe it will happen.”
Guess we will just have to wait and see!
