Sad truth behind The Holiday cottage exposed by Jude Law

We're just a little over a week away from Christmas Day.

And it's simply a given that we'll be hunkering down, cosying up and movie marathoning all our favourite festive flicks to get into the spirit of things, with The Holiday being up there as many people's personal favourite.

It's clearly stood the test of time, given that it hit our screens nearly two decades ago in 2006, treating rom-com lovers to a star-studded cast featuring Cameron Diaz, who plays an anti-relationship workaholic called Amanda from the US, alongside the ever-darling Kate Winslet as Iris, a mild-mannered society columnist for the Daily Telegraph in London who is in love with her boss.

Both Amanda and Iris decide to spontaneously swap homes in an attempt to pull them out of their respective funks.

Iris moves into Amanda's massive mansion in California, while Amanda crosses over the pond to live in Iris's English cottage in Surrey.

It doesn't take long for Amanda to fall for Iris' widowed older brother, Graham (played by Jude Law), and Iris finds an unlikely romance with a hilarious film composer called Miles (Jack Black).

However, Law previously dished the dirt on the beloved cottage from The Holiday, namely confirming that it didn't actually exist! Yep, those deliciously shabby chic interiors, log fire, and stunning stand-alone bathtub were all just a set.

In November 2024, Law appeared on BBC Radio 2's Breakfast Show, where he looked back nostalgically on his role in the film.

"I mean, I find it just honestly glorious," he said, to which comedian Kerry Godliman asked whether the house can be rented on Airbnb.

The Holiday cottage is not far off from pure heaven (Universal Pictures)

"That cottage doesn't exist!" he confessed.

OK, so while that specific cottage in the film may not have actually been real, it was actually inspired by a very real Surrey abode named Honeysuckle Cottage.

After picking Honeysuckle as one of the movie's key filming locations, it ended up being a little too far outside of London for the cast and crew to travel to.

As a result, the crew ended up recreating the entire cottage brick by brick on a film set, naming it Rosehill Cottage.

During the radio appearance, Law continued: "So the director [Nancy Meyers], she's a bit of a perfectionist, toured that whole area, and didn't quite find the chocolate box cottage she was looking for.

"So she just hired a field, and drew it, and had someone build it."

Jude Law previously revealed the cottage wasn't actually real but was based off a real one instead (Universal Pictures)

The A-lister continued: "But here's the funny thing, you watch it... so, we were shooting it in the winter here, and every time I'd go in that door, we cut, and we shot the interiors in LA about three months later."

Law then added: "Just burst the bubble, sorry."

According to HouseBeautiful, Honeysuckle Cottage is no longer available to rent on Airbnb.