Bill Nighy has been busted twice for "Marmite smuggling"

Nighy can recall having a particularly large jar confiscated from him as he was going through security to board a flight from Britain - where the product is made - but a kind airport employee came to his aide and provided him with 33 mini packets of Marmite to see him through his trip.

Speaking on UK TV show 'This Morning', he said: "I got busted at Heathrow for a big jar [of Marmite] and the bloke said, 'You can't have that,' and I said, 'Come on, its Marmite.' And they were all like laughing and I was like, 'Well can't I decant into something smaller.' They said, 'There's no decanting of Marmite.' I said, 'Show me that written down.' And they were all having a laugh but they still took my Marmite.

"The great thing was the young man that was with me he was so stricken by my position he took me to the lounge and he came back and got a bag and he'd been round every single cafe in Heathrow and he'd brought me 33 of those little Marmite packets so it all worked out. That's the second time I've been busted for Marmite smuggling."

The 'Love Actually' star went on to express his dismay for all inhabitants of Canada, as Marmite is a banned substance there.

He said: "You know you can't take Marmite into Canada because Marmite has a secret ingredient and the Canadian government took the view that not telling them the secret ingredient was too important without knowing what it is.

"That's why the people in Canada have no Marmite, imagine the second largest country in the world, more or less nine million square miles, and not one jar of Marmite."

Nighy references the unusual law as his character Alan in latest movie 'Sometimes Always Never', a British comedy-drama about a father looking for his long lost son by using their mutual love of word game 'Scrabble'.