Keira Knightley reveals ‘creepy’ recent encounter with Love Actually fans

The ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ actor says the festive film still follows her around two decades later

Keira Knightley has revealed that her role in the 2003 festive hit Love Actually still follows her around, recalling a “creepy and sweet” moment she shared with a car full of builders.

The 39-year-old actor appears in a famous scene in the holiday classic, during which Andrew Lincoln’s character appears on her doorstep and declares his love for her using cardboard signs.

Speaking on this week’s The Graham Norton Show, Knightley recalled fans of the film recreating the moment in an unlikely situation.

“I was stuck in traffic for ages recently and a car full of builders next to me started holding up the signs like in the movie,” said Knightley.

“It was creepy and sweet at the same time, much like it was in the film.”

Knightley appeared on the talk show alongside fellow guests Cher, Josh Brolin, and Michael Fassbender to discuss her role in the upcoming spy thriller, Black Doves.

Kiera Knightley recalls ‘creepy and sweet’ interaction with ‘Love Actually’ fans (Noam Galai/Getty Images for 20th Century Studios)

Speaking about the stunt scenes in the Netflix series, she said: “Originally, lovely Ben (Whishaw), who is the assassin, was shooting loads of guns so I thought, ‘Great, I don’t have to do much other than look ‘spyee.’

“Then on the second draft I am shooting guns but still that’s not too bad. Then suddenly I am doing knife fighting and Ju-Jitsu. So, we went from it being easy and lovely to a lot of fighting and a lot of training.”

Love Actually has been reappraised several times since its release two decades ago, with critics debating whether the film is as romantic as it initially appeared.

The Independent’s Holly Williams argued that the film is not as “heartwarming” as you might remember, and highlighted the scenes between Knightley’s character Juliet and Lincoln’s character Mark for particular criticism.

“Mark is scared: scared of how much he likes Juliet. And yet he doesn’t even know her,” writes Williams. “Juliet says, ‘But you never talk to me... you don’t like me.’ Mark has put her on a pedestal entirely because of the way she looks, with no regards to her personality or intellect.

“Maybe if he’d bothered to chat with her, he would have realized they had irreconcilably different viewpoints about the war in Iraq or the new Radiohead album or whatever else people talked about in 2003, and could have moved on.

“Instead, we get the most famous scene of the film: Mark turns up to declare his love via the medium of giant hand-written signs, because it’s Christmas and we tell the truth at Christmas. Do we? Isn’t it the time of little white ‘I love it, you shouldn’t have’ lies? And this, after all, his best mate’s wife he’s calling ‘perfect’. Keep it under your Santa hat, Mark.”