Was Keira Knightley too young to star in Love Actually? Casting director Fiona Weir told The Messenger that in a new interview commemorating the 20th anniversary of the beloved movie, Knightley had the “wonderful, open, joyous quality” the writer/director Richard Curtis was seeking in Juliet.
“She was quite young when everyone thought she was older than she was because she’d been acting since she was little,” said Weir. “She was, really strictly speaking, too young for the part. But she had this wonderful, open, joyous quality which Richard really wanted. And I think it worked, I think we believed that she was married to Chiwetel [Ejiofor] and the object of great love for Andrew Lincoln.”
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The young Knightley was 18 when she portrayed Juliet, who marries Peter (Ejiofor, eight years her senior) in one of the first scenes. It is later revealed in the film that Peter’s best man, Mark (Lincoln), has secretly been pining for her. This film was shot by the Academy Award nominee just a couple of days before she flew off to film her part in that year’s Pirates of the Caribbean.
“They wanted to whisk her off, so we had to do quite a bit of clever scheduling to make sure that she could finish being Juliet before she went off to fight pirates with Johnny Depp,” recalled Weir. It has been noted that Knightley was closer in age to her 13-year-old costar, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, but Weir said the difference was “not at all” jarring on set.
“Thomas was a little boy who was with Liam Neeson, being Liam’s son,” she explained. “And Keira was an adult. Sometimes, I think years are deceptive, and in her life, Keira had become an adult. So, it was very different, and their stories didn’t overlap.” Over the years, Weir has continued working with several actors from Love Actually on other projects, but one recent reunion was a “shock” to her.
“They’re all glorious in their different ways and have gone on to do phenomenal things,” she said. “I mean, I do get a shock now when I have meetings with Thomas Sangster, who came in and met a director on something I was working on a little while ago. And he’s now this 6-foot man. When I first met him, he was a little boy. That’s extraordinary.”
Weir added of the cast, “They’re a great gang, and I think they had a really lovely time making the film, even though they weren’t always in scenes together. I think there was a great camaraderie across that shoot.” Love Actually is currently streaming on Netflix.
