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Out of the myriad Love Actually character stories from the beloved 2003 holiday rom-com—which Timothée Chalamet recently dubbed “the best Christmas movie of all time”—star Hugh Grant has a clear favorite. And, no, it’s not his own.
Grant played a U.K. prime minister who gets swept up in romantic feelings for Natalie (Martine McCutcheon), a junior member of his household staff, in the Richard Curtis-directed flick. Those feelings were so strong that Grant’s character famously shimmied his way through 10 Downing Street to the Pointer Sisters’ “Jump (For My Love)” (an iconic scene Grant has since admitted he hated filming).
And while that storyline ends sweetly, with Grant’s PM and Natalie sharing a much-publicized smooch during a Christmas concert, the actor revealed during a recent interview on Access Hollywood’s YouTube that he actually prefers one of his co-star’s plot lines more.
I like Colin’s bits, Colin Firth’s story. I skip through the rest of it really. Which is weird, because I hate Colin and I want nothing but bad for his career. But I do think that’s the best part of that film.
Obviously, Grant is being cheeky about his Love Actually co-star Colin Forth, with whom he has worked with several times throughout his career, most famously as rivals in the first two parts of the Bridget Jones trilogy. (Here’s why Grant opted out of the franchise’s third movie, Bridget Jones’ Baby.)
In Love Actually, Firth plays Jamie, a London-based author who withdraws to a French cottage after discovering that his girlfriend is cheating on him with his brother. There, he connects with his Portuguese housekeeper Aurélia (Lúcia Moniz), despite the fact that she doesn’t speak English and he can’t speak Portuguese.
However, their attraction grows and, in the end (spoiler alert!) Jamie tracks her down at her waitressing job and, in very rudimentary Portuguese, proposes marriage to her. She reveals that she also has been taking English language courses, “just in cases,” and reveals that she shares his love and accepts. In the last scene from the movie, it is revealed that they got married and Jamie can be seen introducing Aurélia to his English friends at Heathrow airport.
Grant might favor Jamie and Aurélia’s story but every Love Actually fan knows the real love story of the movie is the sweet bromance between Bill Nighy‘s Billy Mack and his manager Joe (Gregor Fisher)!
The actor’s jests about Firth aren’t the first time he’s publicly prodded his friend and frequent co-star. Last year, it was reported by the Huffington Post that Grant had dedicated one of the cinema seats in the headquarters of the British Academy Film Awards HQ in London to Firth, equipped with a characteristically playful plaque that read:
Firth is, of course, very much alive and well.
Grant is currently on a promotional tour for the Willy Wonka prequel film, one of the most high-profile releases on the 2023 movie schedule, which is set to hit theaters internationally on December 6 and in North America on December 15. While the aforementioned Timothée Chalamet takes on the titular candy man, the English actor is portraying an Oompa-Loompa named Lofty in the Paul King-directed musical film.