Ever wish you could catch a break from the blues of your everyday life by spending the holidays at a quaint and cozy English cottage? Or perhaps a high-end LA mansion instead? For the leading ladies in 2006’s The Holiday, this was exactly the case. This early 2000s rom-com starring Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Jude Law and Jack Black was as iconic as it gets and it’s one we return to every holiday season, year after year. Here, check out a few surprising fun facts about this beloved Christmas classic as we celebrate the best time of year.
1. Jude Law’s tan transformation was unintentional
Ever wonder why in some scenes of the film, Jude Law has a golden glow and in others, he’s on the paler side? While it would make the most sense that an English winter would have left his hunky character on the fairer side, there’s a reason why we see him sporting a suntan here and there.
“We shot the exteriors in the UK first. It was freezing. For whatever reason, all the interiors—the UK interiors too—were filmed in the studios here in LA, so we all moved to LA,” he shared with Vanity Fair. He went on to explain that Nancy Meyers had a bit of a reputation for taking her time, so in the five-week interim, before he needed to continue shooting, the actor got his tan on!
“If you watch that film carefully, when I’m outside in England I’m really white and pasty, and as soon as I go inside I’m like, ‘Hey!’ and I’ve got this suntan. No one really notices, but if you watch I darken by about two shades every time I step inside and out.”
2. Kate Winslet’s iconic cottage isn’t real
While we wish more than anything that the adorable English cottage owned by Kate Winslet’s character was a real place, unfortunately, it was nothing more than a set.
“We built a cottage in Shere, which is in Surrey, about an hour outside of London, and it was really an amazing process to build a cottage because the people that lived there couldn’t believe that people from Hollywood were coming and building this cottage, but they did a magnificent job,” Nancy Meyers shared with ComingSoon.net.
3. Dustin Hoffman’s cameo was pure luck
During the scene in which Kate Winslet and Jack Black’s characters are browsing in a video shop, he picks up a DVD copy of The Graduate, praising its score, only for the camera to pan over to none other than Dustin Hoffman, who starred in the film. His unexpected cameo came when he was in the neighborhood and noticed all of the cameras. Stopping in to see what was going on, Hoffman, who was a friend of Meyers, agreed to play a part in the film.
4. Lindsay Lohan made a special appearance as a favor
Meyers directed Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap, and when she hilariously told the young actress that “she owes me everything,” she agreed to appear in the film trailer that Cameron Diaz’s character works on in the movie.
5. Jack Black’s ‘boob graze’ scene was inspired by real life
Jack Black’s “boob graze” scene was written into the film after it took place in real-life with Nancy Meyers. She found the interaction to be so funny that she chose to include it in the movie.
