Hilarious Love Actually deleted scene portrays character as gymnast

Love Actually is one of the most widely-loved Christmas films, but a deleted scene has emerged with a bizarre subplot. After a fan found the outrageous scene and posted it online, it quickly went viral.

The scene expands on Sam’s (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) mad dash through Heathrow Airport to catch Joanna (Olivia Olson) to declare his love for her. However, his character was originally written as a “brilliant gymnast” — something that didn’t make the final cut.

In the scrapped clip, Sam is seen landing some nifty moves including a somersault and an array of cartwheels and flips, but it’s pretty obvious the production used adult body doubles.

At one point, his body double uses some poles in the airport as if they are uneven bars, completing an impressive gymnastics routine.

Director Richard Curtis shared a bit about the deleted storyline in the commentary, saying that the scene was “a very rough edit”, telling fans that he decided to omit Sam’s gymnastic talents.

“We were a bit torn whether or not to put [the scene] in because there would have been sort of effects and polish done on it, but we didn’t and I think it’s fun,” he said.

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The director explained that in the early versions of the Love Actually script, Sam was considered a “brilliant gymnast”.

“You casually saw him when he was very sad doing double twists and turns and not getting any joy out of it at all,” he said. “So when it came to the airport…he brought his gymnastic prowess into play and this is a very rough edit of how he would have been the Nadia Comăneci [or] Olga Korbut of the movie.”

Fans went wild over the deleted scene, with many discovering it for the first time on Twitter.

“The uneven bars part is SENDING ME. Whose idea was this??” one fan asked.

“I’m crying. This is actually the funniest thing I’ve seen in my entire life. Who thought this was a good idea? And why is his stunt double literally 6 ft tall?” another added.

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“I’m torn between absolutely believing this is real and not believing this could possibly be real,” a third chimed in.

“It would be even better if they cut the earlier gymnastics references but still kept the airport scene exactly as shot,” another wrote.

“To be fair, this is no more ridiculous than the idea that he could outrun those guards anyway,” a fan pointed out.

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