This 'Love Actually' Character Almost Got A Solo Movie

Love Actually is back on our radars for one very lovely reason: the Red Nose Day sequel. While the short film has already aired in the U.K. and will air in the U.S. on May 25, the cast of Love Actually has been giving fans more nuggets of goodness as the days roll onward. The latest interesting reveal was from Entertainment Weekly's oral history of Love Actually, where director Richard Curtis revealed that Hugh Grant's Love Actually storyline was originally a film. That's right, Grant as the Prime Minister of the U.K. might have had his own Love Actually-esque solo, full-length film. Can you even imagine what the film would have looked like? Or, crazier still, what Love Actually could have been had Grant's storyline not been included?

As Curtis recalled to Entertainment Weekly,

"Two of the stories, the Hugh Grant story and the Colin Firth story, I had started to work on as whole films. But I said, 'Wouldn’t it be great to have only the best scenes, instead of having to trudge through the other stuff?' So this was a chance to do the 30 best scenes from ten movies instead of one movie with three good scenes."

I definitely think that Curtis made the right call by actually incorporating both Grant and Firth's stories into Love Actually rather than keep them separate. (A solo sad-Firth-in-Portugal movie? Hard pass.) Love Actually might have looked like a totally different film without those two goofy dudes in the mix and, between you and me, it might not have been as enjoyable. What would Love Actually be without Grant's almost omniscient narration about what love actually is or without his epic dance sequence? I mean, it would have been total snooze-central, that's what.

EW's oral history was revealing about a number of behind-the-scenes events. Liam Neeson recounted how he actually bumped into a costar from one of his old movies while filming, how Curtis wanted to cast someone like Laura Linney until he actually got the guts to cast Linney, and how Firth's very buoyant booty made filming the lake scene a total bother. You guys, it's literally the most delightful oral history you'll ever set your eyes on. Go read it now and rejoice in its goodness.