Keira Knightley Admits That ‘Die Hard’ Is A Better Christmas Movie Than ‘Love Actually’
This time, John Wayne doesn’t walk off into the sunset with Grace Kelly — because his best man stole her with some creepy cue cards.
After decades of lopsided debate, the moviegoing part of the internet has finally decided by supermajority that, yes, John McTiernan’s 1988 hit action movie Die Hard is a Christmas movie, and it deserves to be experienced with all the sweaters, mulled wine and baked brie for which an intimate December night naturally calls. And, since we now consider Die Hard a contemporary of more “traditional” Christmas films like It’s A Wonderful Life or Elf, that means that we need to compare, contrast and rank it with its fellow holiday hits.
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According to Keira Knightley, wherever you put Die Hard on your Christmas movie tier list, it should be at least one spot above her own contender, the 2003 ensemble rom-com Love Actually. For now, let me say, without hope or agenda, just because it’s Christmas (and at Christmas you quote John McClane), welcome to the party, pal!
When Jimmy Fallon brought up Love Actually during Knightley’s recent appearance on The Tonight Show, Knightley admitted that the movie about a bunch of philanderers and middle-aged Englishmen creeping on their employees isn’t actually in the rotation of Christmas movies at her home, despite how audiences across the U.K. and U.S. continue to expose their own children to Love Actually. “I saw it at the premiere when I was 18, and I’ve never seen it since,” Knightley admitted of the beloved movie.
The now 39-year-old actress insisted that her aversion to rewatching Love Actually is simply due to her discomfort at watching herself act onscreen, but she did recommend some alternate viewing. When Fallon asked Knightley what she watches instead of Love Actually come December, she proudly and immediately replied, “Die Hard!”
Fallon refused to follow up on Knightley's answer due to Die Hard’s somehow still-controversial status as a Christmas movie, but let me explain why Die Hard is a better choice than Love Actually: While one film is mostly about being horny during December and cheating on your spouse, the other is the story of a man who is so devoted to his family that he’d weather the most violent winter to spend Christmas with them, and he blesses his wife and kids with the greatest Christmas gift a man can give — four sequels over the following quarter century.
Call me when the Brits make Live Free or Love Actually.