The Poster Memorabilia blog

An All-Star Cast to Love

A London job, a Comic Relief reunion, and a poster carried over from the States for exactly this.

By an anonymous Hollywood insider

When life rewards you for your hard work, it's the best feeling in the world. I remember working at the BBC in London almost a decade ago. I moved to the UK for my master's degree and landed a job in the entertainment division of the country's top national broadcaster. There, I met the cast of one of my favorite films, Love Actually.

As a girl raised by many women in the early 2000s, movies like Love Actually are like catnip to me. That era had the best rom-coms, and this one ranks high on my list. It has such a great, iconic cast that is filled with icons and legends, and they were all falling in love in the movie.

Think about it! Liam Neeson, Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Keira Knightley, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Bill Nighy, and Rowan Atkinson all in one film? And in a rom-com, no less? They don't make movies like that anymore, that's for sure. Such an ensemble for a chick-flick is practically unheard of these days.

“They don't make movies like that anymore, that's for sure.”

So when I heard I'd get to work on a short sequel for the film, with most of the original cast returning, it felt like God rewarded me for all those grueling hours studying for my master's degree. Finally, I was going to meet some of my favorite celebrities in person.

The sequel was called Red Nose Day Actually and was made to raise funds for Red Nose Day 2017 through Comic Relief. Richard Curtis wrote and directed it, and almost all of the cast members returned to reprise their roles. It was insane that they all agreed to do it.

You've seen the cast, right? These are some of the biggest names in Hollywood, even more so in British cinema. It was already pretty wild that they assembled such a cast for the first movie, but for a short sequel that wasn't even a theatrically released, full-length feature?

It only goes to show how big a mark this movie has left on audiences over the years. I mean, I'm living proof of that myself! I already loved the movie before I went to the UK, but it helped me get through my difficult times here as well.

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Though I worked hard on the shoot, I made sure to meet every single cast member and get their autograph. I brought my Love Actually poster that I got from my aunt all the way from the States, and asked each one to sign it. It was also pretty cool that some of them chose to put their signatures right beside their photos on the poster. I didn't even ask them to do that.

The film shoot was a whole lot of fun, which is probably why I got to go up to them and ask for their autographs. None of them were prickly or annoyed that a nobody American staff worker asked them to sign a poster. They were chill and nice about it, which naturally made me love them even more.

Ironically enough, Emma Thompson didn't take part in the sequel, but I still got her autograph when I met her in Hollywood a couple of years later. The same goes for Laura Linney, whom I finally caught at an event around the same time.

There likely won’t ever be an all-star cast in a rom-com ever again. I’m so lucky I got to meet this amazing ensemble at a time when I needed some cheering up the most.

Some things you watch. This one you keep.

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