Love Actually: Emma Thompson opens up about heartbreaking scene

Emma Thompson has opened up about that memorable crying scene in Love Actually and why it resonates with so many people.

Emma Thompson has opened up about THAT scene from Love Actually when her character realises her husband is having an affair.

The actress revealed why she thinks the heartbreaking scene resonates with so many people in a recent interview with BBC Radio 1.

“I think it’s just because everybody’s been through something like it,” Thompson said about the crying scene from the 2003 movie.

“I think what really gets to them though is that she has to pull herself together. It’s not that she’s upset … it’s the fact she has to pull herself together and that’s Richard’s (Curtis) writing.

“You’ve got to carry on and just be normal, especially for your children.”

RELATED: Love Actually’s biggest mysteries finally solved

RELATED: 15 years on, what you never knew about Love Actually

RELATED: This is the only non-garbage couple in ‘Love Actually’

In the BBC Radio 1 interview, Thompson was touched when she was told that Game of Thrones star Kit Harington considers the scene his favourite moment in any film.

“She goes into her room and she cries, she settles herself, and she comes back,” Harington said in a 2016 interview.

“And by the time she’d left the room and come back, everything in her life has changed, but nothing has at the same time. It’s beautiful acting.”

Thompson has previously revealed that she used a horrific moment from her own life as inspiration when filming the scene.

Last year, Thompson said at a fundraising event in London that she knew exactly what her character was going through because her ex-husband, Kenneth Branagh, cheated on her with actress Helena Bonham Carter.

“I had my heart very badly broken by Ken,” she said during the event.

“I’ve had so much bloody practice at crying in a bedroom, then having to go out and be cheerful, gathering up the pieces of my heart and putting them in a drawer.”

Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh announced their separation in 1995.

The wedding of actors Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson on August 20, 1989 in London, England. Picture: Georges De Keerle)

In December last year the Love Actually script editor, Emma Freud, recalled how she watched in awe as Thompson filmed the emotional scene seven times.

“I experienced what was effectively an acting masterclass when we filmed the scene where Emma Thompson listens to the Joni Mitchell CD in her bedroom and cries,” Freud told news.com.au.

“We shot that in a real house rather than on a set so it felt very intimate and the bedroom wasn’t very big. I sat by the door on the ground and watched her do seven takes of that scene — every single one was as brilliant as the one we chose.

“In between each take she snapped straight back into being Emma Thompson and chatting normally. And then as soon as the camera was rolling she transformed in a second into a woman at the absolute lowest point of her marriage.

“She cried on every single take and I’ve never seen anything like it. It was one of those moments where admiration turns into profound respect for someone who has honed their skills to that level and can, on cue, produce emotion which has so much integrity that it can move an audience to tears.”

Kenneth Branagh cheated on Emma Thompson with actress Helena Bonham Carter. Picture: Jeff Spicer

Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman in Love Actually.