‘Love Actually’ is not just a Christmas classic, but also a constellation of A-list stars. Among them was supermodel Claudia Schiffer, whose appearance on screen was incredibly brief — yet astonishingly expensive. Did you know that for her 90 seconds in the film, she received a fee comparable to a small fortune?
Directed by romantic-comedy master Richard Curtis, Love Actually weaves together nine separate stories, some of which intersect as the film unfolds, all beginning five weeks before Christmas in London. At the center of these storylines are the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (Hugh Grant), who falls in love with his assistant (Martine McCutcheon); a writer (Colin Firth) coping with his partner’s infidelity; a married couple on the brink of divorce (Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman); and, of course, the widowed Daniel (Liam Neeson), who is trying to rediscover faith in love while raising his stepson.
It is Liam Neeson’s character who becomes the key to the supermodel’s appearance. At one point, he jokingly remarks something along the lines of: “For me, it’s all over — unless Claudia Schiffer calls, and then you’ll be out of here pretty quickly, you miserable orphan.” Director Richard Curtis seized the opportunity to turn this joke into reality, giving Claudia Schiffer a small but memorable role. It was more of an unexpected and successful cameo than a full-fledged part.
The Price of a Second of Fame
Amazingly, this fleeting appearance turned out to be golden for the German top model — and extremely costly for the filmmakers. Claudia Schiffer’s total fee amounted to around €240,000. This means that every second of her screen time cost the studio approximately €3,975.
And even for that sum, the model initially refused to do a kiss. Liam Neeson later recalled: “Claudia came up to me and said, ‘My husband won’t allow me to kiss you.’ I told her, ‘Claudia, you read the script — it’s in the contract,’ and she said, ‘No, no, no.'” Thinking it was a joke, the actor went to the film’s producer: “I think we have a bit of a problem. Claudia Schiffer doesn’t want to do the kissing scene.” After brief negotiations, Schiffer agreed to a compromise: instead of a kiss on the lips, she would kiss Liam Neeson on the neck. Neeson, for his part, expressed bewilderment at the decision, considering a kiss on the neck “far more intimate” than a kiss on the lips.
In any case, this short but striking cameo by Claudia Schiffer became one of the most expensive in the history of romantic comedies.
