‘It’s something everyone’s been through’: How Emma Thompson’s real-life heartbreak after her very public break-up from Sir Kenneth Branagh inspired THAT Love Actually scene
- The actress, 63, portrayed Alan Rickman’s on-screen wife in the film and one famous scene sees her discover her husband is cheating on her
- Emma said to film the moment, she channelled her feelings of betrayal after her public break-up with her first husband Sir Kenneth Branagh
- Emma was heartbroken when Kenneth had an affair with Helena Bonham Carter while directing her in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Dame Emma Thompson has revealed her real-life heartbreak which inspired her very emotional reaction in that famous Love Actually scene.
The actress, 63, portrayed Alan Rickman’s on-screen wife in the romantic-comedy film and one famous scene sees her discover her husband is cheating on her.
In the heart-wrenching moment, Emma’s character Karen bursts into tears when she realises her husband Harry has bought a necklace for another woman.
She had earlier discovered the gorgeous necklace in her husband’s jacket pocket but is then left devastated when he instead gives her a Joni Mitchell CD for Christmas.
Karen then excuses herself and breaks down in her bedroom before wiping her tears away and going back to join her husband and their two children smiling.
Upset: Dame Emma Thompson has revealed her real-life heartbreak with Kenneth Branagh (pictured in 1994) which inspired her emotional reaction in that famous Love Actually scene
Emotional: The actress, 63, portrayed Alan Rickman’s on-screen wife in the romantic-comedy film and one famous scene sees her discover her husband is cheating on her
And Emma has revealed that her own real-life heartbreak actually inspired her very emotional reaction in the 2003 Christmas classic.
She shared that while filming the moment, she channelled her feelings of betrayal after her very public break-up with her first husband Sir Kenneth Branagh.
Emma and Kenneth got married in 1989 and were the British acting scene’s golden couple until Kenneth had an affair with Helena Bonham Carter while directing her in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Speaking about her devastation, Emma said she had her heart broken ‘very badly’ and that she understood what it was like to find ‘the necklace that wasn’t meant for me’.
‘That scene where my character is standing by the bed crying is so well known because it’s something everyone’s been through,’ she said at a fundraiser event in 2018.
‘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.
‘Well it wasn’t exactly that, but we’ve all been through it.’
Emma and Kenneth tied the knot just two years after they met, but his affair with Helena ended their six-year marriage in 1995.
‘We’ve all been through it’: Emma was left heartbroken when her first husband Sir Kenneth Branagh (pictured in 1993) had an affair with Helena Bonham Carter
Affair: Helena is believed to have started an affair with Kenneth in 1994 while she played his love interest in his version of Frankenstein. They went on to have a five-year relationship
Helena is believed to have started an affair with Kenneth in 1994 while she played his love interest in his version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. They went on to have a five-year relationship.
It is not the first time Emma has spoken of her upset after learning of the affair as she previously admitted she felt ‘unlovable’ after the end of her first marriage.
She told the New Yorker: ‘I was utterly, utterly blind to the fact that he had relationships with other women on set.
‘What I learned was how easy it is to be blinded by your own desire to deceive yourself.’
‘I was half alive. Any sense of being a lovable or worthy person had gone completely,’ she added.
Two years before Helena met Kenneth and their affair began, she had worked with Emma on 1992 romance drama film Howard’s End.
Since the affair, the pair have also worked together on the Harry Potter series, with Emma playing Professor Trelawney and Helena starring as Bellatrix Lestrange.
However, Emma has previously admitted that she has long ‘forgiven’ Helena for the affair, saying in 2013 that they had ‘made peace’ years ago.
Revealing how she recovered from the devastation, Emma said it was her now husband of 27 years Greg Wise who ‘picked up the pieces and put them back together’.
Moving on: Emma has previously admitted that she has long ‘forgiven’ Helena (both pictured) for the affair, saying in 2013 that they had ‘made peace’ years ago
Love: Revealing how she recovered from the devastation, Emma said it was her now husband of 27 years Greg Wise (pictured on February 19) who ‘picked up the pieces’
Reflecting on her marriage to Greg, she added: ‘I’ve learned more from my second marriage just by being married. As my mother says, “The first twenty years are the hardest.”
Emma met Greg while filming Sense and Sensibility in 1995, which won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
However, the news of her and Kenneth’s break-up had not yet been made public at the time she was filming the period drama.
Emma and Greg now share daughter Gaia, 23, and son Tindyebwa. The couple adopted son Tindyebwa, a former child soldier in Rwanda, in 2003 when he was 16 years old.
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