Keira Knightley Thought ‘Love Actually’ Scene Was “Quite Creepy”

More than 20 years later, the world is looking back on one of Keira Knightley‘s breakout roles through a new lens.

Although audiences have come to see her Love Actually scene with Mark’s (Andrew Lincoln) cue cards as less romantic over the years, the 2x Oscar nominee admitted she thought it was a “quite creepy” way to profess his love for her character Juliet when they were filming.

“The slightly stalkerish aspect of it — I do remember that,” Knightley told the Los Angeles Times. “My memory is of [director] Richard [Curtis], who is now a very dear friend, of me doing the scene, and him going, ‘No, you’re looking at [Lincoln] like he’s creepy,’ and I’m like [in a dramatic whisper], ‘But it is quite creepy.’ And then having to redo it to fix my face to make him seem not creepy.”

In the 2003 Christmas romantic-comedy, Juliet marries Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) get married as his best friend Mark films the ceremony. After Juliet discovers that Mark only filmed her during the reception, he ends up professing his love for her with a series of cue cards outside their house, while Peter watches TV inside under the impression Carolers are at their door.

Knightley also addressed the behind-the-scenes age gap, which has caused some controversy in recent years, as the actress was 17 to Lincoln’s 30 and Ejiofor’s 26.

“I mean, there was a creep factor at the time, right? Also, I knew I was 17,” she noted. “It only seems like a few years ago that everybody else realized I was 17.”

Knightley’s appearance in the holiday ensemble fave came months after her breakout role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

Curtis’ new holiday film That Christmas, his first animated feature based on his children’s books, premiered last week on Netflix.

“I really adore Christmas,” said Curtis at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in June. “Whenever I’m kind of thinking of stories, that’s the first place that my mind goes to.”