What Do You Know About 'Love Actually'? Quiz

Answer: Plumpy

Everyone - with the exception of David - seems to think that Natalie (played by Martine McCutcheon) is overweight and comments ranging from the size of her thighs to the width of her seat are repeated over and over. All I can say is, if the curvaceous Ms McCutcheon is overweight, then I'm positively grotesque!

Like Natalie in 'Love Actually', McCutcheon hails from 'the dodgy end' of London. Her biological father was an abusive husband and father. Martine's first memory is that of being dangled from a balcony by her father who threatened to drop her if her mother didn't do what he said! When Martine was ten, her mother married John McCutcheon, and Martine took his name.

Martine always knew that she wanted to be an actress. The family could not afford the fees for drama school, so Martine wrote a very persuasive letter to a Church of England trust, and bless them, they agreed to sponsor her! She studied dance and drama at the Italia Conti School in London.

The singer/actress starred in the popular BBC soap 'Eastenders' as Tiffany Raymond, who got bumped off rather spectacularly on the show aired on New Year's Eve, 1998.

Answer: Claudia Schiffer

German supermodel/actress Claudia Schiffer plays a cameo role as Carol in 'Love Actually'. Ever since she hit the big time in modelling, as the new face of Chanel No. 5 perfume in the 1980s, the statuesque (5'11") blue-eyed blonde has been one of the world's most recognizable women and has achieved 'dreamgirl' status for millions of men around the world. Schiffer is married (as of 2007) to British film producer Matthew Vaughn and they live in England with their two children.

Prior to her appearance in 'Love Actually', Schiffer is mentioned twice: at the funeral for Joanna, Daniel's wife/Sam's mother, Daniel (played by Liam Neeson) tells the congregation that his late wife wanted him to bring Claudia Schiffer as his date to the funeral, and later in the movie, Daniel jokingly tells Sam that if and when Claudia Schiffer moves in, Sam will have to move out! And lo and behold, Claudia Schiffer plays Carol, the woman with whom we hope Daniel will find a second chance at happiness. Nice touch.

Answer: Colin Firth

Colin Firth burst into stardom on both sides of the Atlantic when he appeared as Mr. Darcy in the BBC TV production of 'Pride and Prejudice'. That role led to film stardom in such movies as 'The English Patient' (he played Geoffrey Clifton), 'Shakespeare in Love' (Lord Wessex), 'Bridget Jones's Diary' (Mark Darcy) - his first movie co-starring with Hugh Grant, 'The Importance of Being Ernest' (Jack Worthing), 'Nanny McPhee' (Cedric Brown) - his first co-starring role with Emma Thompson and Thomas Sangster, and a reprise of his role as Mark Darcy in 'Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason'. Firth is married (as of 2007) to Italian documentary film maker Livia Giuggioli and they have two sons. Apart from his busy film career, Firth is something of a political activist, interested in the rights of refugees.

In 'Love Actually' Andrew Lincoln plays Mark, Martin Freeman plays Jack and Kris Marshall plays Colin. Jamie's cleaning lady is played by Portuguese singer/actress Lucia Moniz.

Just as an aside, is anybody else bothered by that extra 's' in 'Bridget Jones's Diary'? The possessive form of Jones is Jones', isn't it? Where is Lynne Truss when you need her?

Answer: True

Grant's grandmother and Sangster's maternal great-grandmother were sisters, which makes Sangster and Grant second cousins once removed (family trees are so complicated, aren't they?). Sangster was born May 23, 1990, which means he was 13 when he played the adorable 10-year-old Sam in 'Love Actually'.

He has a string of TV and movie credits to his name, including 'Nanny McPhee' with Emma Thompson and Colin Firth. Thomas' father Mark Sangster is an actor/musician and his mother Tasha Bertram is a dancer.

As well as being a gifted young actor, Sangster is also an excellent gymnast.

Answer: Colin

Kris Marshall played the wonderfully slap-happy, lay-about, older son Nick in 'My Family', a character similar to that of Colin Frissell in 'Love Actually' (except that Colin holds down a steady job, something Nick never managed to do). Mark was played by Andrew Lincoln, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and John was played by Martin Freeman, who graduated from the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Rodrigo Santoro, who hails from (and still lives in) Rio de Janeiro made 'People Magazine's' 2004 list of the 50 Most Beautiful People. Somehow that doesn't surprise me!

Answer: Juliet

Keira played Juliet, the bride of Peter (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) and the object of the affection of Peter's best friend, Mark (Andrew Lincoln). Keira started acting in 1993 when she was seven, and worked primarily in made-for-TV movies. In 1999 she played Sabe, Queen Padme's decoy in 'Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace'. The role that brought her to stardom was that of Jules Paxton in the wonderful film 'Bend It Like Beckham'. Since then, she has starred in 'Love Actually', 'King Arthur' (as Guinevere), 'Pride and Prejudice' (as Elizabeth Bennett, a role for which she received an Oscar nomination) and as Elizabeth Swann in 'The Pirates of the Caribbean' movies.

Mia, the minx who makes a play for her married boss Harry (Alan Rickman) was played by German actress Heike Makatsch, who lived with actor Daniel Craig, the new James Bond, for five years before ending the relationship. Joanna Page, a Welsh actress, played Judy, who falls in love with Jack while they are both working as stand-ins for actors in a blue movie.

Karen was played by the amazing Emma Thompson who gave a very moving performance as a middle-class wife and mother. Thompson also played opposite Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman in 'Sense and Sensibility' (1995), with Thompson as Elinor Dashwood, Grant as her love interest Edward Ferrars and Rickman as Colonel Christopher Brandon, who loves Elinor's sister Marianne (Kate Winslet). And, of course, every 'Harry Potter' movie fan knows Thompson as Professor Sybil Trelawney, who teaches Divination at Hogworts and Alan Rickman as Severus Snape.

Answer: Wandsworth

Like many parts of London, Wandsworth has both high-end and low-end (Natalie's dodgy end) areas. One can find elegant 18th century terraces and squalid Victorian row houses within a stone's throw of one another, not to mention the most famous Wandsworth landmark, Her Majesty's Prison, which currently houses some 1416 inmates and which, during the war, was home away from home for captured enemy spies! Handsworth isn't in London at all - it's in Birmingham and I went to King Edward VI School in Handsworth. Edgeworth is the name of a Polo Club in Warwickshire and there are no polo clubs in the dodgy ends of any UK towns or boroughs. Wordsworth isn't a place - he was an English poet.

Answer: Spider-Man

'Catch a Falling Star' replaces the more traditional Christmas carols usually sung at nativity pageants, and one of the three kings seems to have been Spider-Man.

When Stan Lee and Steve Ditko introduced Spider-Man to the world in Marvel Comics 'Amazing Fantasy #15' in August, 1962 they broke new ground for superheroes. Prior to Spider-Man, superheroes had always been adults, and teenagers were merely sidekicks (like Robin in 'Batman'). With the creation of Spider-Man (aka Peter Parker), Lee and Ditko gave the world a superhero who suffered from fear of rejection, awkwardness and a sense of inadequacy, all problems shared by his faithful adolescent readers. Over the years, Spider-Man has grown up and moved from being a shy high school student to a college student with problems, to a teacher who finds love and happiness in marriage, and nowadays he is a member of the Avengers.

Answer: Olivia Olson

Olivia Olson was born in Los Angeles in 1992, the daughter of famous comedy writer Martin Olson. In 'Love Actually' Olivia (as Joanna Anderson) brings down the house at the Christmas concert when she sings 'All I Want for Christmas is You'. Writer/director Richard Curtis had Olivia trained to sing more like a little girl, since he was sure that her surprisingly mature singing voice wouldn't convince the film's audiences.

Mary Kate Olsen is one of half of the Olsen twins (the other half is Ashley). The twins shared the role of the cutie-pie Michelle in 'Full House'. I made up Alana and Elvira.

Answer: False

Despite his brilliant turn in 'Love Actually' as a Keith Richards knock-off, Nighy's first career choice was journalism. That didn't pan out so he went to theatre school instead. He started acting professionally in 1981 and is a highly-acclaimed, award-winning stage actor as well as appearing in films and on TV.

He is best known in North America for 'Love Actually' and for his role as Davy Jones in the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' films, in which he co-stars with Keira Knightley (do you ever get the feeling that the film world is a very small world indeed?).