Despite being a Christmas movie, "Love Actually" isn't all merry and bright. One of the most devastating moments has Karen (Emma Thompson) slipping off to cry alone in her room, having just discovered that her husband Harry (Alan Rickman) has given a gold necklace to another woman.
The scene resonated strongly with audiences, and with Thompson herself. In 2018, she said that in the moment, she drew on her breakup with fellow British actor Kenneth Branagh (via The Telegraph). The couple had married in 1989, but in 1994 Branagh had an affair with Helena Bonham Carter (another British thesp), and he and Thompson divorced.
Thompson said that although her relationship didn't play out exactly like Karen's, "I had my heart very badly broken by Ken. So I knew what it was like to find the necklace that wasn't meant for me."
One of the many people in awe of Thompson's performance in that scene is director Richard Curtis, who got to watch it firsthand. They shot it nine times from various different angles, "and she did it perfectly all nine times," he told Entertainment Weekly.
Thompson, Branagh, and Bonham Carter all later appeared in the "Harry Potter" series, as Professor Trelawney, Gilderoy Lockhart, and Bellatrix Lestrange respectively. Thompson has since remarried, and has "made peace" with Bonham Carter.
