by It’s hard to forget your childhood when it’s captured on film. Even more so when that movie is the Richard Curtis classic Love Actually.
“There’s at least three times every Christmas,” Thomas Brodie-Sangster, who you may remember as Sam, Liam Neeson’s sweetheart son in the 2003 film, told Yahoo in 2014.
“I haven’t seen the film in its entirety in a long time. I don’t need it. I went to see it at previews and screenings. The first time it came out on TV I saw it and got the DVD and watched it. It was exciting for me!”
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The 32-year-old actor is no doubt proud of his feature film debut, although – despite a string of successful roles since including a stint on Game Of Thrones and several Maze Runner films – it’s still what he’s been most recognized for. .
“Even if they say, ‘oh my God Game Of Thrones, it’s going to be Love Actually right away,” he admitted. “Game Of Thrones is huge in the US, but so is Love Actually.”
But it’s hard not to see the 13-year-old drumming and pining for the cute girl in school in the star-studded holiday comedy.
“I’m a little baby-faced,” he told us, noting that the only thing that’s really changed is that he’s gotten a little longer and his voice has gotten deeper.
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Fortunately, in the years since, the Londoner – the son of two actors – has managed to avoid the traps of many child stars who get hooked on alcohol, drugs and bad behavior.
“I don’t think I was ever afraid that fame or money or free drugs would ruin me,” she said. “I remember classmates or colleagues going off and drinking a warm bottle of vodka in the park and that was never me.”
Instead, Sangster’s tastes were more refined.
“I remember being a kid and my grandfather would come from Scotland with a bottle of scotch and he and my father would sit and have a scotch or two in the evening, in a nice glass and I remember being captivated by it, thinking it was cool. I wanted to I’d say, ‘no, I’m not sitting on a park bench drinking a warm bottle of vodka, I’m drinking a nice single malt.’
He laughs and worries about sounding pretentious. “That’s how I became ‘Posh Kid’ in school, even though I’m not,” he sighed. “I’m from Elephant and Castle.”
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“I never liked going out and being absolutely pissed off. I really enjoy drinking,” she continues. “I make my own cocktails at home and I really like Old Fashioneds and whiskey sours and Manhattans… But I love the whole process and how sociable it is. Making them for other people and then sit down and listen to music and then slowly end up slightly drunk as opposed to going and getting drunk.
Then there’s Game Of Thrones. He Jojen Reed’s character—a seer who helps Bran Stark see the future—joined the show in season three and is still alive and well in the books.
Not so in the show. Jojen was killed off well and properly in the television series and Sangster didn’t even know it until he was on the plane to Belfast to start filming season four.
“I finally got around to reading the last episode because there’s a lot to read – ten episodes, one hour,” he recalls.
“Towards the end, he said Jojen gets stabbed repeatedly. And I was like, ‘What?!’ Oh but I’ll be fine, nobody told me I’m dying. She says my sister comes over and slits my throat and I’m like, ‘WHAT?! What are you talking about?’ And then she says someone throws a Molotov cocktail and Jojen catches fire and I was like, ‘okay, I’m DEAD, dead, dead. Don’t come back from that.’ Nobody called me, I just read it on my way to film it.
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While she may not be returning to Westeros anytime soon, she will sit with her eggnog watching Hugh Grant dance down the corridors of Downing Street the next time Love Actually appears on television.
“I sit down and take a couple of scenes and I remember a little bit,” he says. “As the years go by, you get to see it a little more like a movie. It’s impossible at first. You can’t help but remember what was happening that day, what you did, what you had for lunch. I look and see a little boy.
In 2017 Brodie-Sangster reprized his role of Love Actually for a charity short film called Red Nose Day Actually. Set 13 years after the events of the film, it saw Sam reunited with his stepfather Daniel (Liam Neeson) after years living in New York.
Sam is revealed to be with Joanna, his crush in the film played by Olivia Olsen, who asks Daniel for her stepson’s hand in marriage. And it was a reunion on and off screen.
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“It was very magical,” Curtis told The Daily Beast in 2017. “Thomas was definitely a kid when we made it and he’s a real man now, so I think that was especially touching because Liam hasn’t seen him since.” the first”.
The cast recently reunited as part of an hour-long special, titled The Laughter & Secrets of Love Actually: 20 Years Later, which aired on US network ABC.
Brodie-Sangster is now enjoying great success in the world of TV, earning a Primetime Emmy nomination for his role in Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit and earning acclaim as Malcolm McLaren in Danny Boyle’s Pistol. He is currently dating his Pistol co-star Talulah Riley, dating at several events throughout 2022.
(Editor’s note: This interview was first published in 2014)
Love Actually is streamed on Prime Video or on ITVX with ads.
