Speaker
Emma Thompson
Appearances over time
1 episodes
Episodes
1
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
Emma Thompson keeps her Academy Awards in the lavatory to keep them 'in their place', and stores her Globes and BAFTAs on a shelf so high she can't see them.
Emma Thompson originally planned to be a stand-up comedian, inspired by Lily Tomlin, before her acting career took off.
Emma Thompson has lived on the same street in North London since she was 6 years old — more than 60 years.
London was experiencing a 35-degree Celsius heatwave during the recording, unusual for a city that typically has only about three hot days per year.
Emma Thompson's Oscar-winning Sense and Sensibility screenplay came about after a producer saw her feminist sketch about Victorian sexual ignorance and invited her to adapt a Jane Austen novel.
Emma Thompson spent nine months learning the Sweeney Todd score before performing it with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center and at London's Dominion Theatre.
Emma Thompson has spent 10 years writing the musical adaptation of Nanny McPhee, with music by Gary Clarke, and it is coming to London's West End the following year.
Emma Thompson was born in 1959, only 14 years after the end of World War II, which she says shaped her London childhood and explains her artistic obsession with the two World Wars.
Emma Thompson's paternal grandmother went into domestic service at 16 and had a child out of wedlock after being raped by one of her employers — a story Thompson recounted as context for her working-class roots.
Emma Thompson and her partner told their daughter the television was broken, a ruse the child believed for approximately eight years until she found the remote at around age nine.
Emma Thompson did not allow her daughter to have a phone until secondary school at age 13, as part of a deliberate approach to limit screen time.
Emma Thompson argued that society has lost its relationship with boredom, which she and Jason Bateman both agreed is essential for imagination, relaxation, and mental clarity.
Emma Thompson performed sketch comedy for years in the Cambridge Footlights alongside Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, describing it as similar in format to Saturday Night Live.
Emma Thompson keeps her Oscars in the lavatory and her Globes on a shelf so high she can't see them. It's not false modesty — it's a very British instinct to refuse to let trophies define the room.
Emma Thompson has spent a decade writing the Nanny McPhee musical with composer Gary Clarke, aiming for a Victorian steampunk, Tom Waits-meets-dark-circus sound. It is finally coming to the West End.
Before the Oscars, before Harry Potter, Emma Thompson planned to be a comedian. She performed sketch comedy at Cambridge Footlights alongside Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, inspired by Lily Tomlin's one-woman shows.
Emma Thompson spent nine months learning the Sweeney Todd score before performing it with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center. Shakespeare, she argues, is easy by comparison — like a reliable old sailing boat.
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.
Emma Thompson asked the hosts a simple question: when did you last feel actually bored? The conversation that followed argued that boredom is not a problem to solve but a prerequisite for imagination, real relaxation, and mental clarity — something the smartphone generation has lost entirely.
Emma Thompson's father was a working-class boy from Guildford who escaped his circumstances to become an actor. His mother — Emma's grandmother — was a servant who was raped by an employer and had a child out of wedlock. That dramatic family history is the soil from which Thompson's career grew.
At Harry's Bar in Venice, a woman grinned at Emma Thompson all evening before revealing she thought Thompson was the person who sold her shoes on the fifth floor of Barneys. The woman was thrilled to see her doing so well.
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.
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.
Craig Mazin — who wrote Chernobyl — has penned a film about a murdered shepherd whose sheep solve the crime, and Emma Thompson is in it. The premise is so good, she says, she would have played a broom.
When Emma Thompson first arrived in America, she was baffled by the relentless presence of ice — everything came with it, she joked, including chicken Parmesan. Britain's lack of ice, she explained, comes down to smaller fridges and fewer hot days.
A feminist sketch Emma Thompson wrote about a Victorian woman encountering a penis for the first time led producer Lindsay Doran to ask her to adapt a Jane Austen novel. The result: an Oscar-winning screenplay.
Analysis
What they talk about
- Arts 55%
- Society & Culture 36%
- Education 9%
Connections
Shows they appear on and people they share episodes with. Drag to explore.
