'Love Actually' Short Film Sequel Trailer Asks Which Star Has Aged The Best
We'll probably never get a proper sequel to the 2003 romantic comedy gem Love Actually, but we'll make do with a ten-minute short film starring many of the original cast members that was produced to raise money for Comic Relief's Red Nose Day. The new trailer for this project, titled Red Nose Day Actually, is here and it shows off many members of the original cast...and asks you to decide which of them has aged the best.
The trailer is a recreation of one of the most famous scenes in Love Actually (which is also one of the worst scenes in the movie, but don't get me started), with various cast members relaying the nature of the short to the audience wordlessly via a series of hand-written signs. We know that the special will reunite Hugh Grant, Martine McCutcheon, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Keira Knightley, Andrew Lincoln, Colin Firth, Lucia Moniz, Liam Neeson, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Olivia Olson, Bill Nighy, Marcus Brigstocke, and Rowan Atkinson, and this trailer features just about all of them.
One of the only major cast members who chose not to participate was Emma Thompson, who declined to return due to the death of Alan Rickman, who played her character's onscreen husband.
Although Comic Relief and Red Nose Day are an institution in the United Kingdom, they are still relatively new to the United States. However, they have found huge success in the past few years, raising tens of millions of dollars to help fight child poverty. Charity tie-ins are relatively commonplace, but this is the kind of project that can turn all kinds of new eyes toward a good cause. After all, just about everyone with a soul likes Love Actually.
Love Actually writer/director Richard Curtis is one of the Comic Relief's original founders and he had this to say about returning to these characters for charitable purposes:
Over the years I've enjoyed doing Red Nose Day specials of TV things I've worked on – Blackadder, The Vicar of Dibley and 'Mr Bean. It seemed like a fun idea this year to do a special sketch based one of my films, since Red Nose Day is now in both the UK and America. I would never have dreamt of writing a sequel to 'Love Actually,' but I thought it might be fun to do 10 minutes to see what everyone is now up to. Who has aged best? – I guess that's the big question... or is it so obviously Liam? We've been delighted and grateful that so many of the cast are around and able to take part – and it'll certainly be a nostalgic moment getting back together and recreating their characters 14 years later. We hope to make something that'll be fun – very much in the spirit of the original film and of Red Nose Day – and which we hope will help bring lots of viewers and cash to the Red Nose Day shows.
You can learn more about Red Nose Day at their website. The Love Actually sequel short will premiere on the BBC in the U.K. on May 24, 2017 before airing on NBC in the United States on May 25, 2017.