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It’s the holidays, which means that people are rewatching some of their most beloved holiday movies. From Home Alone and It’s A Wonderful Life to How the Grinch Stole Christmas, several go-to flicks are there for us to enjoy each holiday season.

However, Love Actually, the British romantic-comedy with a delightful holiday backdrop, is also a fan favorite. Unfortunately, one of the stars of the movies just called it sexist and cheesy.

Love-Actually
Love Actually | Universal Pictures

‘Love Actually’ is still an insanely popular holiday movie

When Love Actually debuted, no one could have guessed that the holiday-themed romantic comedy would as successful as it was. Even Hugh Grant, who starred in the film as David, the newly elected Prime Minister, never anticipated the frenzy around it.

In fact, he thought the infamous scene where his character dances to the Pointer Sisters was going to tank the entire movie. “I thought, ‘That’s going to be excruciating, and it has the power to be the most excruciating scene ever committed to celluloid,” he told Variety.

This is why there was never a ‘Love Actually’ sequel

Since it was such a massive and unexpected hit that threw a ton of British stars together, it would make sense that Hollywood would want to double down on their win. After all, made on a $40 million budget, the holiday film pulled in $248.5 million at the box office.

However, writer and director Richard Curtis has been adamant about never bringing a full-length sequel to the big screen. “I’ve always been sure I wouldn’t do a sequel – but I had sometimes thought it would have been fun to see what some of the characters were up to,” he told Radio Times. “Fifteen years later you can be pretty sure that Bill Nighy’s Billy Mack would still be releasing dodgy records.”

Lulu Popplewell calls ‘Love Actually’ ‘cheesy and sexist’

With such a massive ensemble cast, Popplewell was just a little girl when she starred in the film as Emma Thompson and the late Alan Rickman’s characters’ young daughter, Daisy. Though the actor spoke warmly about her experience making the film, she isn’t exactly a fan of the narrative looking back on it 17 years later. On the Almost Famous podcast via Cosmopolitan U.K., she got candid saying,

I don’t regret it at all. Look, softly be it spoken I think it’s a s**t film. I think it’s aged badly. All the women in it are sort of passive objects. I think that there was an article describing them as passive objects to be acquired. “On re-watching it’s not great,” she continued. “You also have to remember that he [Richard Curtis] was writing in the context of the time… I mean I don’t know how he excuses more recent work. But it was in 2003 or whenever it was out. But it is also not for me because I don’t like cheese. I’m glad people like it.

Whether you adore Love Actually or not, we’re glad Hollywood has made strides for women.

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