If you trample all over Emma Thompson ’s heart, even when she’s playing a character, you will feel the wrath of the entire nation. It’s a sentiment Heike Makatsch knows well. The German actress, 53, played the temptress secretary Mia in Love Actually who seduces Karen’s (Emma) husband Harry ( Alan Rickman ).
When Karen discovers their affair, she famously sobs while listening to Joni Mitchell . It’s a gut-wrenching scene seared into the brains of many women – and Heike told Metro.co.
uk she still gets flack for it. ‘Outside of Germany, people only know me through Love Actually or at least primarily through that film,’ the Resident Evil actress said, via a translator on Zoom. ‘That’s where people see me as the secretary who destroys a marriage, and many women feel a sort of anger towards me because of that.
’ However, now she’s hoping to overhaul her intentional reputation with her excellent turn in Apple TV drama Where’s Wanda?. Heike plays Carlotta, a desperate mother who resorts to bugging her neighbours’ houses to find her missing daughter Wanda (Lea Drinda). ‘It’s quick that you’re typecast and I hope that now internationally Carlotta will help me so that people can see I’m not just the marriage-destroying evil Mia,’ she said with a laugh.
But she looks back on her time in Love Actually fondly. Her co-star Rickman, who died aged 69 from pancreatic cancer in 2016, was ‘loveable and wonderful’. ‘I was nervous and he gave me a very g.
