LUCKY ESCAPE

‘Love Actually’ Star Reveals She Was Kidnapped While Filming BBC Series

The actress was one of several castmates taken hostage during the rocky production.

Actress Joanna Page is opening up about her scary experience being held captive while working in South Africa 20 years ago. During a recent appearance on the “Five Brilliant Things” podcast, Page, 48, revealed she was once taken hostage while filming the 2005 BBC miniseries To the Ends of the Earth. The Gavin & Stacey star said she was visiting a nearby mall when she asked a local man, who told her he was a taxi driver, to bring her back to her hotel. Instead, the man drove around for 90 minutes, refusing to let her out of his car and telling her he would force her to strip for naked photos. “It was the only situation I think I’ve ever been in in my life where I thought, ‘You’re in the s---. This is serious. You can’t get yourself out of this,’’ Page told host Russell Howard. Eventually, the actress decided to charm the driver into letting her go. “I thought, okay, just laugh with him, make him laugh, tell some jokes, be saucy,” said Page. The man ultimately returned her to the hotel, where staff told her she was “so incredibly lucky” to have gotten away unharmed. However, Page wasn’t the only cast member to face a dangerous situation during production. Her co-star, Benedict Cumberbatch, was later abducted and held at gunpoint alongside two friends after their car broke down during a break from filming. The actor said in 2012 that surviving the ordeal had “made [him] want to live a life slightly less ordinary.”

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