LONDON -- Every actor has an ego and no actor ever loses it, no matter how sweet in disposition and disinclined to ego-driven tantrums.

"Actors never give up their ego!" Irish star Liam Neeson says. "We place it in different places," he muses with a mysterious air and a hushed voice. "We surrender it to a point -- but only to a point!"

So Love Actually, the new film from New Zealand-born, England-based Richard Curtis, is a curious cultural artifact.

That is because Love Actually is a true ensemble from the man who wrote the film scripts for The Tall Guy, Four Weddings And A Funeral, Bean, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones's Diary. There are nine major stories going on separately and simultaneously, weaving together only briefly at the end. Each concerns a different kind of love: Fresh or faded, youthful or mature, platonic or sexual, happy or miserable, hopeful or doomed, and so on.

Critically, there are a clutch of stars in the film, including Neeson, Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Laura Linney, Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean himself), Keira Knightley (the breakout star from Bend It Like Beckham), Billy Bob Thornton (in a cameo as the bully-boy president of the United States), Martine McCutcheon (a singing star in Britain, known for two albums and a West End revival of My Fair Lady) and Bill Nighy (a brilliant character actor who shamelessly steals this picture).

Egos had to be surrendered to Curtis, who is making his directorial debut. Linney, for one, says it was easy and describes Love Actually as a case study in how to make actors happy, and ego-less, in their work.

"I would so have to disagree with you!" she says to Neeson, while sitting at a podium during a group interview. "I've worked with this man a lot and he's one of the most ego-less people to work with -- period! There is the idea that you have to be really selfish to be an actor. It's really the opposite. You have to have be as selfless as possible.

"This was just great fun. This was just a baseball team of people coming together. For me, an American, to be able to come over here was just heaven. I find these the most satisfying experiences, when you're in a fabulous group of actors you're proud to be a part of and you're all sort of looking to the same end."

Grant, being the bratty and bemused English schoolboy even in his 40s, claims he only wants to do ensembles now, if anything at all. In Love Actually, he plays the newly elected British prime minister, a single man with his eye on his sexy assistant (McCutcheon).

"Well," Grant says with a droll tone in his voice, "I'm going through a phase in my life where I'm not that keen to act at all, really, especially not in lead parts. I just find it too stressful. I'd rather sit at home and watch the telly or play golf.

"So, in a way, it's absolutely ideal to just come in and do a bit. There was no grand idea of sharing or diluting myself."

In that spirit of NOT sharing, Grant had some sharp words for Firth, who so bested him on screen as a competing character in Bridget Jones's Diary.

"I always hoped Colin would be bad," Grant says of Firth's acting in Love Actually, "and, indeed, he is!" Grant, of course, is kidding. He admires Firth. He just won't admit it.

Firth, in a separate interview, gets serious, as is his wont. In the film, he plays a jilted English author who falls hopelessly in love with his Portuguese housekeeper during a writing session in Provence. Firth's scenes with Lisbon actress Lucia Moniz are the most exuberantly romantic in the entire movie. "There's no subtlety here," Firth says.

"Part of the reason we have to be so bold is that we had very little time to tell our story, each (of us). We would have four or five scenes in order to develop the whole concept of a story. You tend to have to use broader strokes.

"And I was fortified by Richard Curtis in this, partly because (I trust) a man with his track record in storytelling success. I must say, I have never felt so little pressure on any film because there were so many of us and so many other stories and so many talented people around me. Nobody felt the film on his shoulders, so you could abandon yourself."

The actors also believed, Firth says, they would be cut out if they screwed up. "I think most of us were fairly certain we'd be the first to go!"

McCutcheon did feel that, although she is delightful in her role. She just didn't feel she belonged at first.

"For me," she says, "there was definitely no ego involved because I was just absolutely gobsmacked that I got the part. Most actresses would cut their arm off for my part.

"You know, I've done lots of TV work and music stuff and, for me, the movie business and the people who are in it are the creme de la creme of the business. I actually found that they were the people with the least ego. They were so gracious. So, I was absolutely honoured to be working with everyone: Very excited, very nervous and convinced that someone was going to find me out and that I was rubbish and would get kicked out."

Nighy, like McCutcheon, was happy for the role, in his case as an insane, washed-up, self-indulgent rock star who catapults back into infamy with a cocked-up Christmas CD.

He was, like the rest, delighted to be in an ensemble that actually is stellar in the true sense. "I think you can use the word, for once, properly," Nighy says.

Credit goes to Curtis, as writer and director, and to the actors for recognizing that being part of a whole is creative and cool.

"And," Nighy says, "everyone has big, fat, fundamental, profound, groovy jokes -- not the least me! That makes me think: 'What did I do to deserve all this shite?' "

Surrendering an ego doesn't mean you have to give up your sense of humour, especially in Love Actually.


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