Emma Thompson: “Too Sad” To Do A Love Actually Reunion Without Alan Rickman

Of all the intersecting relationships featured in Love Actually, the one that left fans with the most lingering questions was the one between husband and wife Karen and Harry, played by real-life longtime friends Emma Thompson and the late Alan Rickman. A Joni Mitchell CD clued Karen into her husband's infidelity, and while we see them reuniting at Heathrow Airport with their two children at the film's end, there's a big question mark over the nature of their relationship. That question mark may not be budging. Though stars like Liam Neeson, Hugh Grant, and Martine McCutcheon have signed on for a Richard Curtis-helmed mini-reunion for Britain's Red Nose Day charity special, Thompson has opted out of the project out of respect for her friend, who died of cancer in January 2016. In addition to Love Actually, she and Rickman acted together in Sense and Sensibility and three of the Harry Potter films. "Richard wrote to me and said 'Darling, we can't write anything for you because of Alan' and I said 'No of course, it would be sad, too sad,'" the actress told journalists at an event for her new film, Beauty and the Beast, last night, the BBC reports. "It's too soon," she added. "It's absolutely right because it's supposed to be for Comic Relief but there isn't much comic relief in the loss of our dear friend really only just over a year ago." She doesn't begrudge the reunion itself, however. "We thought and thought but it just seemed wrong but to revisit the wonderful fun characters of Bill Nighy and Hugh Grant and Liam (Neeson) and all of that, that's fantastic but obviously what would [Rickman] have done?" she said. The British actress has her own theory about what happened to Harry and Karen. "Both of them would be in therapy by now and I would be working on some kind of ward," she predicted. "It was absolutely the right decision."