The Food of Love: Keira Knightley and Joe Wilkinson Star in Waitrose’s Festive Foodie Romance

She’s the star of festive favourite 'Love Actually', returning to her rom-com roots after recent roles in action-packed thrillers 'Black Doves' and 'The Woman in Cabin 10'.

He’s the comedian who has shaken off his misfit weirdo comic persona to become a household name, thanks to standout turns in 'Last One Laughing' and a tiny, little show you might have heard of called 'Celebrity Traitors'.

Together, they’re a recipe for one of the most heart-warming Christmas ad campaigns of 2025. Waitrose has combined food and romantic comedy in 'The Perfect Gift', starring none other than Keira Knightley as herself and Joe Wilkinson as Phil.

The unlikely pair bond over their shared love of cheese (relatable) which sparks the beginning of a festive romance. Inspired by romantic classics like 'Love Actually' (whose director, Richard Curtis, called the film “sweet as pie”) the four-minute short and trailers were directed by BAFTA-award winning Molly Manners ('One Day') with production from Biscuit Filmworks, and creative from Wonderhood Studios’ creative team, Jen Ashton and Oli Short.

For director Molly Manners, the chance to capture Keira and Joe’s quirky chemistry on screen was irresistible. “What a privilege to be invited in by Waitrose and Wonderhood to tell this emotional rollercoaster of a love story,” she said. “We had such a great time making this miniature rom-com with food as a love language deep at its heart. The combination of Keira Knightley and Joe Wilkinson is completely magical in such an unexpected way, I hope they knock your socks clean off, as they did mine.”

At the heart of the film and the wider campaign is the simple, tasty insight that food is love, making it the ideal premise for a rom-com plot. The Wonderhood team used the rom-com format as a north star around which they could build out the campaign. The hero is the short film and audiences will be encouraged to see in full via a 60-second trailer alongside film-style OOH posters that style Joe and Keira like true rom-com protagonists.

The film and campaign is a big deal for Wonderhood Studios. In January 2024 they were put on the brand’s social media account, and created the supplementary Christmas social content to last year’s campaign. In March 2025, however, they were named as the brand’s lead creative agency. 'The Perfect Gift' marks the agency’s first 360 Christmas campaign for the British supermarket. For Nathan Ansell, Waitrose’s chief customer officer, entrusting Wonderhood made sense because, in his words, confidence “is all about relationships”. He added, “this was an opportunity to do things differently. We’re making TV advertising to a degree but it's actually so much more than that. We wanted to entertain and inspire.”

The intersection of entertainment and advertising is Wonderhood’s forte with founder and CCO Aidan McClure saying the team aims to “captivate audiences for brands and broadcast”. Entertainment “drove a lot of the decision-making on this project,” he said, from casting to selecting the director. The eagle-eyed may have spotted that Joe appeared in last year’s ‘Sweet Suspicion’ spot for Waitrose as Phil. “Despite his part being relatively small, audiences really enjoyed him. So we thought it would be great to develop his character and story a little bit further,” he explained. Molly Manners’ rom-com expertise made her the first choice to direct and Aidan pointed out that she also shoots ads, “bringing those two worlds together: the entertainment skills and the commercial skills together.”

Beyond the epic romance – and it really does hit the emotional heights that a Christmas rom-com should – the Wonderhood team knew it had to push beyond “entertainment for entertainment’s sake”.

“We wanted a really hardworking retail campaign,” said Aidan. “Marketing it like a movie allows us to enter those more traditional spaces that retailers operate in. Everything's well-branded and driving audiences to watch this film, but in a way that's really selling Waitrose. We want audiences to be entertained and to talk about our advertising.”

​ECDs Stacey Bird and Jack Croftsaid that there was certainly a feeling of pressure and responsibility, though that wasn’t scary or unwelcome. Stacey said it served as inspiration. “Last year’s ad was brilliant. When you give that to a creative person, and say ‘You need to one up that now’, that's a really exciting challenge,” said Stacey. “For Wonderhood, this ad is massively important. We haven't done a big Christmas ad before, so it's a big milestone for us and we had it in us.”

The team landed on the rom-com genre quickly which “was helpful for the creative process,” added Jack. “There was real confidence from Nathan and the team in what the idea could achieve and the magic behind it. It's been a lot of work but it's been great fun, like the challenge of making it feel like a film across everything that we do, not just thinking about the hero film but every element. The brief informed everything.”

Stacey said the team kept returning to the question ‘would a rom-com do that?’ at every stage. “That was really helpful in the end to bring all of the elements together and I do feel, as a campaign, it does hang together really well,” Stacey said.

What also helped that sense of cohesion is that food (and the enjoyment thereof) is a recurring theme across the canon of romantic comedy. From Meg Ryan’s “I’ll have what she’s having” turkey sandwich in 'When Harry Met Sally' to Julia Robert’s ‘escargot incident’ in 'Pretty Woman', some of the most iconic rom com scenes are about going gaga over some grub.

“Food plays such a central role in them, like in ‘Bridget Jones’ with the blue soup, there's always like a moment where food is pivotal in the story. It felt like food had a really crucial role, rather than feeling like, ‘Oh, we're tacking food on to the story’,” added Jack.

One of the challenges, said Nathan, was “actually bringing it all together as an integrated campaign and that requires an enormous amount of work from a lot of people to make that happen”.

Still, he found working on this a delight. “In 20 years of doing this, I've never felt genuinely emotional watching a monitor because it's quite a scientific process in a way, it's a little bit clinical to a degree when you're making advertising, weirdly. But, honestly, that meet-cute when we saw [Joe and Keira] on the first morning in the Kingston branch and we were sitting there watching the monitor, it was like ‘Wow, that's brilliant,” said Nathan.

The whole process was lots of fun for the campaign’s leading lady too. Keira Knightley said, “I love food, and so when I received this script where I get to fall head over heels in love over a shared love of cheese, I couldn't turn it down! I adored working on this silly, fun and delicious film with Joe and I hope those watching it fall in love too.”

Joe Wilkinson added, “It was great to be back with Waitrose for their 2025 Christmas campaign. This year, Phil got to enjoy both the love and the food he truly deserved. As you can imagine, it was tough having to eat the delicious Waitrose food and falling in love with Keira, but I just got on with it, like the trooper I am!”

The festive foodie love story premiered on YouTube at 12.01am on 12th November and is supported by 60 and 30 second films running across TV stations, social and digital platforms. Designed as ‘movie trailers’ to generate excitement and intrigue around the main event, the trailers will run in programmes such as ‘Coronation Street’, ‘Gogglebox’ and ‘1% Club’. Paid media was planned and bought by MG OMD and encourages viewers to watch online to experience the full feel-good fun of 'The Perfect Gift'.