Love Actually fans still can’t get over shocking real-life age gap between Keira Knightley and Thomas Brodie-Sangster

Despite never appearing in the same scenes, Love Actually actors Kiera Knightley and Thomas Brodie-Sangster worked closely alongside one another during filming of the 2003 festive blockbuster.

And even though their characters are depicting stages of life that are world's apart - with Knightley's 'Juliet' getting married, and Brodie-Sangster's 'Sam' being a primary school student - their real-life ages were disturbingly close...

For those in need of a little rom-com refresher, Love Actually sees a big-name batch of Brits attempting to navigate the highs and lows of modern love - all the while preparing for the incoming Christmas season.

Each character is tied loosely to another through a niche connection, which links every single scene together.

In fact, part of the fun when watching this Richard Curtis hit is attempting to follow the path of relationship from one to another.

Let's take Kiera Knightley and Thomas Brodie-Sangster's characters, for example.

The Pride and Prejudice actress plays happy-go-lucky bride Juliet, who marries the love of her life Peter (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), much to the dismay of his best-friend Mark (Andrew Lincoln), who doesn't appear to like her very much - although, we all know he secretly loves her...

Brodie-Sangster, meanwhile, played pre-teen Sam, whose mother has recently died, and who turns to his step-father Daniel (Liam Neeson) for some advice about a girl he likes in his class at school.

Kiera Knightley was just 18 when she appeared in the festive favourite (Universal Pictures)

As we say, however, despite the pair never actually appearing in any scenes together, Juliet can be linked to Sam through her husband's BFF Mark, who owns an art gallery rented out by Alan Rickman's seedy business boss Harry, who is married to fan-favourite Emma Thompson's mum-of-two Karen, who lives near Daniel and serves as a shoulder to pass on when his wife dies, who is Sam's step-dad.

See, I told you it could be done.

Anyway, even more shocking than the connection, is the staggering age gap between Kiera Knightley and Thomas Brodie-Sangster in real life.

And by staggering, we mean tiny weenie.

That's because love-triangle victim Knightley was just 18 years old at the time the cameras starting rolling.

Brodie-Sangster, however, was 13 when he played Sam.

This means that the pair were only... wait for it... FIVE YEARS APART when they appeared in the film.

Brodie-Sangster was just 13 when he appeared in Love Actually (Universal Pictures)

And let's just say, over two decades on from Love Actually's release, and fans still cannot get over this revelation - even though Knightley is now 39, and Brodie-Sangster is 34.

Taking to social media recently, one penned: "I watched Love Actually last night and it’s just blown my mind that there’s only 5 years age difference between Keira Knightley (gets married) and Thomas Brodie-Sangster (little kid in school play)."

Another added: "TIL [today I learned] there's only a 5 year age gap between Keira Knightley and Thomas Brodie-Sangster. You know these two people in #LoveActually."

A third went on: "Just learned that Keira Knightley was only 18 when they filmed Love Actually.

"This is the most shocking revelation since finding out Thomas Brodie-Sangster was 15 in Nanny McPhee."

A fourth, who also shared side-by-side images, said: "There was a FIVE YEAR age gap between these two when Filming Love Actually. What. The. Heck.