5. Colin Firth played Jamie, a writer who leaves London for his French country home after learning his girlfriend cheated on him with his brother. There, Jamie meets Portuguese housekeeper Aurélia (Lúcia Moniz). And while they don’t speak the same language, they understand the feelings they’ve formed for each other.
Jamie returns to England for a family Christmas party only to turn back around and, after learning some Portugese, propose to Aurélia. As he leaves, his niece yells, “I hate Uncle Jamie.” And apparently, the name was a playful jab at Curtis’ brother.
“Richard only called colin firth’s character ‘jamie’ so the kids could say ‘I hate uncle jamie,'” his wife and script writer Emma Freud tweeted in 2015. “His brother is called jamie.”
6. As for Aurélia, Curtis shared in the director’s commentary the name was a nod to a friend-slash-employee who looked after his and Emma’s son.
7. In one scene, Jamie types outside while Aurélia clears a cup that had been holding down his papers, resulting in the wind sweeping them into a lake. Curtis said they used a wind machine so loud the lines were dubbed.
Aurélia dives in to retrieve the pages, and Jamie follows. However, Curtis said the lake was only 18 inches deep at the time of filming.
“They’re kneeling now, pretending to swim, but actually crawling along the bottom, the poor things,” he added in the commentary. “And Colin got stung by a sort of animal and his elbow swelled up to the size of three avocados the next day.”
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