The Love Actually sequel won’t pay tribute to Alan Rickman

Director Richard Curtis has said it would be “complicated” to deal with the passing of the actor, who died last year and played Harry in the 2004 film.

"You know dealing with Alan is very complicated so not really," Curtis told Press Association. "We’re not [involving] everyone. We’re doing about two thirds of people."

And despite previously hinting that Rickman’s former on-screen wife Emma Thompson may appear, he’s now said that she definitely won’t be part of the line-up.

"Ems isn’t in it. She just can’t do it," he added.

Meanwhile, Curtis's partner and script editor Emma Freud revealed just how much work had to be done to get the sequel's script up to scratch.

"I’ve never been more useful as a script editor than I was on this because the first draft he did on this was SO bad that I told him we absolutely shouldn’t do this and we should abort the plan.

"And he rewrote it and rewrote it and it’s quite good now but it’s very much for Red Nose Day. We’ve tried to hook it into that at every point and that felt a bit like a crowbar at the beginning but it’s working quite nicely now."

The Love Actually sequel is currently filming in London with Liam Neeson and co-star Thomas Brodie-Sangster already having shot scenes on that iconic bench. It will air during Red Nose Day on 24th March.