Where this was said
Alone in Berlin, Choosing Projects, and Gut Instinct
At 32:13 · chapter starts 29:25
Will mentions that he recently discovered Emma's adaptation of Alone in Berlin — Hans Fallada's novel about quiet resistance to Nazi Germany — and watched it unaware she had made it. He calls the book one of the best second halves he has ever read, and the film beautiful. Emma, visibly touched, asks whether Will is really one of the three people who saw it. [1] — Will Arnett "Will Arnett called Alone in Berlin one of the best second halves of a book he has ever read. Emma Thompson said the novel and the film she …" 31:48 The conversation opens into a broader discussion about how Emma selects projects across wildly different genres. Her answer is intuitive and almost mystical: things come to you at moments when you need them, and 'something will come across my bowels' and she knows instantly. She links her attraction to Alone in Berlin to a larger obsession with the two World Wars, which she argues left traumas in the UK that have never been properly healed — a particular resonance for someone born in 1959, just 14 years after VE Day.
Will Arnett called Alone in Berlin one of the best second halves of a book he has ever read. Emma Thompson said the novel and the film she made from it speak to World War II traumas that the UK has never properly addressed.
Emma Thompson, born in 1959 just 14 years after the war's end, says the UK has never properly healed from the traumas of both World Wars. That unresolved grief is why films like Alone in Berlin keep drawing her in.
Jason Bateman admits he sometimes takes roles specifically because the character has a personality trait he wants to try on in his own life. It is a low-stakes personal experiment disguised as work.
