Emma Thompson on why this ‘Love Actually’ scene has stood the test of time for viewers

Nearly 20 years later, one scene in the holiday film "Love Actually" continues to strike a chord with viewers, and Emma Thompson has a theory why.

Appearing as a guest on TODAY with Hoda and Jenna on Wednesday, Dec. 7, the British actor, who plays Karen in the 2003 movie, said her character's reaction to receiving the "wrong" gift from her husband, indicating that she's likely being cheated on, stands the test of time.

"I think it’s to do with the fact that we’re required in our lives to repress the things that we’re feeling," Thompson told TODAY co-hosts Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager. "So, you can be hit right between the eyes with some terrible piece of news, but you can’t react immediately because you’ve got your children there. It’s that thing of not showing — that’s why it hurts. That’s why it moves us."

In the film, Karen continues to have a hunch that her husband, Harry, is having an affair with another woman from his office. At one point she comes across a beautiful necklace that she suspects will be her Christmas gift from him, but when it comes time to exchange presents with the family, Karen's heart appears to sink as she realizes she wasn't the one to receive the jewelry.

"If she went, 'Oh my God! I thought you were going to give me a necklace! And you've given it to somebody else,' we would not be moved, you know? We're moved because she just goes 'I'm not gonna do it,'" the 63-year-old said of Karen. "Then she makes the bed, the bed that sort of suddenly feels so empty of meaning. And then she goes (downstairs) and goes, 'Hello, everyone! Let's go.' That's why people identify.

To this day, Thompson said she still meets people who approach her, emotional about that scene. "And I go, 'you've been through it haven't you? I can tell,'" she said.

In 2017, most of the beloved "Love Actually" cast reunited for a 10-minute long reboot for Comic Relief's Red Nose Day fundraiser. However, Thompson sadly didn't appear alongside her fellow actors following the death of co-star Alan Rickman, who played Harry in the original film.

“Richard (Curtis, screenwriter) wrote to me and said, ‘Darling, we can’t write anything for you because of Alan,’ and I said, ‘No, of course, it would be sad, too sad,’” Thompson told the Press Association.

Over the years, she and Rickman appeared in a number of movies together, such as "Sense and Sensibility" and several "Harry Potter" films. Rickman died in January 2016 at the age of 69.

In her own life, Thompson also experienced hardship in marriage, saying she was "blinded" by ex-husband Kenneth Branagh, whom she said "had relationships with other woman on set."

“I was utterly, utterly blind ... What I learned was how easy it is to be blinded by your own desire to deceive yourself,” she said in an interview with The New Yorker.

The two married in 1989, then separated and divorced six years later. Thompson and Branagh have together appeared in “Fortunes of War” and “Dead Again,” among other films.

“I was half alive,” Thompson said of her state of mind amid their split. “Any sense of being a lovable or worthy person had gone completely.”

She noted that her current husband, 56-year-old Greg Wise, then came along and "picked up the pieces and put them back together."

During her Dec. 7 interview, Hoda asked Thompson what love means to her now, at this stage of her life.

"Well, I think that it's a wonderfully important, essential muscle that needs to be used," she said. "You can't just take it for granted, not love in relationships, not love in friendships."

Thompson continued: "I think I've learned, and I'm 63 now, that you have to put in (the work). You can't just say, 'Oh, I love you.' You know how we do, especially with social media, 'Oh, I love you! Anyway, see you!' If you do love somebody, you actually have to do it. You have to actually act on it."

She added that love and kindness should not simply be practiced at home or in personal relationships, but rather should be actively involved in operating institutions.

"Somehow we've separated that out and said 'that's just for the domestic sphere,' but actually, it ought to be in the government sphere, in civil society," she said. "Love should be part of it because it's a very powerful and wonderful thing, and it really helps us all to be healthy."

This article was originally published on TODAY.com