Out of all of the Love Actually character storylines, the would-be romance between Laura Linney’s Sarah and Rodrigo Santoro’s Karl is one of the most memorable and not just for moviegoers.
During a 2019 appearance on The Graham Norton Show alongside Wonka lead Timothée Chalamet, his Little Women co-star Saoirse Ronan and British comedian Stephen Mangan, Linney proclaimed that “hands down” her character got the best kiss in the beloved 2003 Christmas movie, even though Sarah and Karl sadly don’t end up together in the end:
[People] feel very sorry for me but they shouldn’t! They shouldn’t because I really believe I got the best kiss in that movie, hands down. Hands down, I got the best kiss, sorry!”
In the British romantic comedy, the American actress plays Sarah, an employee at a London-based graphic design company who is crushing on the creative director, Karl (Santoro), to the point where even her boss (Alan Rickman) knows and jokes about it. Though the characters’ near-love scene proves that Karl reciprocates Sarah’s feelings, a complicated situation with her mentally ill brother ultimately gets in the way of their romance.
In the resurfaced Graham Norton clip, you can hear the studio audience whoop it up for Linney’s hunky Brazilian co-star. (But funnily enough, despite being a self-proclaimed Love Actually fan, Chalamet had to question whether her onscreen smooch was with his fellow Wonka actor Hugh Grant or not.)
The Tales of the City star revealed that, behind the scenes, she and Santoro were actually both “very broken-hearted” in real life, which added “a sweetness” to the much-loved scene of their characters finally getting together after their office party in the holiday rom-com.
And it was sweet because we were both very broken-hearted when we made that movie. He had just been dumped, I had just been dumped. I remember the day when we were going to go shoot this and we both sort of slumped in the van and he’s like, ‘Laura, my heart is broken.’ And I was like, ‘So is mine!’ And I turned to him, I was like, ‘Well, all day long, we get to make each other feel better.’ And I think there is a sweetness to the scene because of that, we were both very sad. Sweet!
Love Actually has endured as a fan-favorite flick in the two decades since it premiered—CinemaBlend has dubbed it one of the 100 Best Movies Of The 2000s—and Linney spoke to that lasting legacy during the talk-show appearance.
Love Actually is so much bigger than I thought it would ever be or any of us did. It’s sort of a universal connection that people have with that movie.
Thankfully, it seems like both Linney and Santoro have fared better romantically than their on-screen characters did: the Ozark star has been married to Marc Schauer since 2009 (fun fact: her Love Actually co-star Liam Neeson walked her down the aisle at the wedding!) and Santoro got hitched to Brazilian actress Mel Fronckowiak back in 2016.
But though Sarah and Karl didn’t get their own happily ever after, at least the performers have happy memories of that smooch!
