Keira Knightley has said she found the much-talked about poster scene in festive favorite Love Actually “quite creepy” during filming.

Richard Curtis’s romantic comedy, originally released in 2003 and since shown on both small and large screens this Christmas, features several intertwining storylines involving different groups of friends, family and lovers.

One is about an unrequited love triangle between Knightley’s character Juliet, her new husband Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his best friend Mark (Andrew Lincoln), who seems to avoid Juliet but whose true feelings emerge when the wedding video, which he mostly shot, comes to light includes lingering shots of her.

Then Mark shows up at the couple’s house, armed with Bob Dylan-style posters declaring his love and an audio recording of Christmas carols to disguise what’s happening so Peter doesn’t hear about it.

The scene has been much debated over the past 20 years, with the theory put forward that it is not a highly romantic, albeit eccentric, act, but rather a sinister and compulsive act.

In an interview with the LA Times, Knightley said she was immediately aware of the dissonance, even though her age at the time – she was 17 – meant she was only allowed on set for a limited time.

“The slightly stalkerish aspect – I remember that,” she said. “I remember Richard, who is now a very dear friend, filming the scene and he said, ‘No, you look at (Andrew) like he’s scary,’ and I think (in a dramatic way). whisper), “But it Is pretty scary.’”

Knightley recalls: “Then I had to do it again to correct my face so he wouldn’t look scary.”

The actress was asked if she felt an “eerie factor” in the scene while filming, to which she replied: “I mean, there Was A creep factor back then, right? Also, I knew I was 17. It feels like it was only a few years ago that everyone else realized I was 17.”

However, Knightley said she still liked the film and was amazed at its survival after death. “It’s nice because it didn’t do as well as everyone thought when it came out. Suddenly, about three or four years later, it took on a life of its own. It’s the only film I’ve ever had that found that afterlife.”

Appearing on the Graham Norton Show last month, Knightley said she was still frequently approached on the street by people paying tribute to the film, and a group of construction workers held up signs for her when she was stuck in traffic recently stuck. “It was scary and cute at the same time, similar to the movies,” she said.

Ejiofor also expressed skepticism about the plot, saying he found Mark’s behavior in the film “undoubtedly” terrible. “If there was a conversation between the two after that, it could get heated,” he said.

“I’ve noticed in the 20-odd years since the movie came out that sometimes people find it romantic – the gesture, the cards, all that stuff – and sometimes people just think, ‘What is he doing?’ He should have been arrested.’”

Curtis recently told Netflix, which is releasing his new animated film That Christmas, that the idea for the scene was approved by the committee. “I remember it very clearly, so I wanted a way for him to show Keira how he felt,” he said.

“I was in an office and there were about four people working there, and I said I’m going to come up with four ideas today and then put them to a vote.”

“I went out and said to the four people who work in the office, if you were flirted with, which one would you prefer? You definitely picked the cards. So it was a community decision.”