So many years ago I would watch this movie when it came on Starz, and in the ending when Viola is walking along the shore, she runs into a couple of people and asks them what country she is in. The man replies, "You're in America." And she says "America? That's a good thing" or something like that.
I watched the movie on Netflix, and this part was completely removed. It was just the shot of Viola walking along the beach, and then the credits.
That scene isn't in the theatrical cut (at least, not the one released in the UK), but I have the Region 2 DVD, and it's in the deleted scenes.
In the movie, the last time we see Will he is sitting down and starting to write Twelfth Night. We see on his paper the first line of that play, which is the heroine Viola asking 'What country, friends, is this?' - to which, in the play, she receives the answer 'This is Illyria, lady'. Then it segues into a scene of shipwreck and Viola swimming to the surface and coming to shore, while Will's voice-over describes the plot of his play, and that's it.
The bit of dialogue in the extended scene is a precise copy of the opening of Twelfth Night, except that the answer is 'This is America, lady'. I suspect Madden and Stoppard & Co cut it because they felt they had already made their point about the New World and there was no need to labour it; but evidently Starz felt that for an American audience there was a need to labour it.
I think the ending of Shakespeare In Love is very clever.
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