Emma Thompson has confirmed that she will not be returning for the belated sequel to Love Actually, owing to the death of Alan Rickman, a close friend who played her husband in the original film.

Speaking to the Press Association, Thompson said that writer/director Richard Curtis had written to her while planning the 10-minute reunion film, which will be broadcast in the UK on 24 March for Red Nose Day.

“Richard 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.’”

“It’s too soon. It’s absolutely right because it’s supposed to be for Comic Relief but there isn’t much comic relief in the loss of our dear friend, really, just over a year ago.

“We thought and thought [about it] but it just seemed wrong. It was absolutely the right decision.”

In the 2003 ensemble movie, Thompson plays the sister of Hugh Grant and the wife of Rickman, who is considering an affair with a colleague. In what many perceive as the film’s standout scene, Thompson breaks down in her bedroom after realising that a necklace Rickman has purchased as a romantic Christmas present isn’t for her.

Asked what she thought her character in the film would be doing now, Thompson replied: “I would be working on some kind of ward.” In 2015, the film’s script editor, Emma Freud, confirmed to fans that although Thompson and Rickman’s characters would have stayed together, they wouldn’t have been as happy.

Most of the original cast of Curtis’s hit film will be back for the sequel, including Grant, Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy, Keira Knightley and Andrew Lincoln.