Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Emma Thompson (June 2022)

Episode Date: November 6, 2022

In 1995, Emma Thompson took on the challenge of adapting Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility into a successful movie. She was rewarded with an Academy Award for her writing as well as a Best Actress nomination for her performance in that film, capping a run of five Oscar nominations and two wins in just four years. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist gets together with the British star to talk about cementing her place as one of Hollywood’s most beloved actors and her latest, most revealing role yet in the buzzed about film Good Luck to You, Leo Grande. (Original broadcast date: June 19, 2022) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. I am thrilled to bring you my guest this week. I'm going to venture to say, yeah, I'm going to step out on this limb. They don't come any more charming than Academy Award winner, Emma Thompson. Everyone I talked to when I said I was going to do this interview said, I love her, or they'd put their hand over their chest and go, oh, Emma Thompson, or they'd start reciting a line from Love Actually or sense and sense of

or Howard's End or her part in Harry Potter. She's just the kind of person that you love to see when she pops up on the screen. Her second film role of her life, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1992. Howard's End was that movie. The next year in 93, she was nominated twice at the same Academy Awards. One's for Best Actress, the other for Best Supporting Actress. And then a couple years after that, she was nominated again for Best Actress for sense and sensibility and won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. We talk about that. This was in 1995.

She took like four years and adapted Jane Austen's sense and sensibility herself, sat down and wrote it, made it into a screenplay, and won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. She grew up in the theater, her parents, actors. She was a comedy troupe called The Footlights, which is a famed at the Cambridge organization there where they do sketch comedy and everything. else. It's sort of a, you know, it's a feeder for talent in Great Britain. Some of the biggest names you know have been there. So she started in comedy, very funny, very quick-witted. And she's just great. I think you're going to love the conversation. Her new movie is called Good Luck to You, Leo Grand, a little background because we kind of hop right into it.

It's a cool, small, 90-minute movie, two people in the film. At the end, there's one additional cast member. But for the most part, it's just the two of them. She is. a character named Nancy who is widowed, a retired religious education teacher who kind of, by her description, trudged through life, had kind of an unfulfilling marriage. She raised two kids. Nobody ever paid attention to her, asked her how she was doing. She never derived any pleasure or adventure out of life. And now she's seeking it. So she hires an escort, half her age, named Leo Grand. Knock on the door. So begins this adventure together. And it begins as a transaction. action becomes a friendship exploring each other's lives and why they do what they do, how they

became who they are. It's really good. I think you'll like it, especially if you love Emma Thompson, like all sentient beings do, I believe. She's just so much fun to talk to. She's got so much to say about acting, about her career, about her life, and about the world in which she participates vigorously. So I will step out of the way right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast, the great, the Academy Award winning, Emma Thompson. It's good to see you, Emma. Thank you for doing this. So I feel like we've done half the interview already.

Yeah, we'll pick up where we left off. Okay. The film is extraordinary. I just finished watching it this morning. It's funny. It's heartbreaking. I said to you, I think it's a brave performance by you. What did you think, Emma, when you first got this script and said, we want you to be this

character and to say these lines and to do these things on film? What was your reaction? Well, I know Katie, the writer. And she said, you know, I've thought of you. And as soon as it started, the situation was what got me. You know, you've got a 63-year-old ex-religious education teacher. I love religious education, by the way, and my teachers. And she's in a room and you think, okay, what's happening?

She's a bit nervous. There's a knock on the door. And a 28-year-old sex worker walks in. And she's hired him. That's like my favorite situation of all time. I mean, I love all the work that I've done before. but I've never been put in that situation. I've never seen these people.

I've never seen this situation. And the fact that she's so terrified. I mean, it was, can you imagine what bliss it was to play? You know, she's full of assumptions about this young man. And then slowly it all gets kind of stripped away. Everything gets stripped away, including what she's wet. You know, finally, they unpeel one another, but in the most kind of, it's an examination of right intimacy

that we're not used to because we associate, intimacy with romance, which of course can be a little bit delusional. Yes, without a question. Carbby it from me to suggest. So you were in at the jump, is it fair to say? I was in at the jump. As soon as that knock came on the door, I said, I want to do it. Don't give it to anybody else.

I'll do it. Yes, absolutely. Intimate is an understatement for this film. I think it's fair to say, both emotional and physical intimacy. Did you have any reservations about the physical? side of it? Or did you embrace that and think this is an important role for me to play? Well, you know, in the script, it doesn't really say much. It just, in fact, I think Sophie and Katie took a while to work out whether they should be a sex scene. And it was Sophie,

you said, there has to be a sex scene. We have to have a sex scene. So that wasn't for uppermost in my mind, interestingly, nor indeed was nudity uppermost in my mind. I didn't really think about that. I sort of thought about it in a kind of, well, that'll sort itself out. The real challenge was, how do we make this funny, compassionate, moving, really pleasurable to watch when we, we don't have, like, New Zealand to give it scale, you know, but the scale is in the seismic emotions of what these people go through. And also, the hilarity of someone wanting something, but not able to it's both heartbreaking and funny and that's my favorite combination. It is, and it is both of those things simultaneously.

How would you describe to someone who's thinking about going to see this Nancy, where she is in her life, Nancy, which we learn later, maybe perhaps isn't her real name. Where is she in her life and why does she even entertain the idea of bringing this young man to a hotel room? She's retired probably for about five years. and widows for two years. And something has happened in her mind, in her body. She's just gone, I've never experienced sexual pleasure, not really, not ever. Except I do remember that one time when I was 16 and that Greek boy did that thing.

And there must be something there. People go on about it. All the time I know there's something there and I haven't had. I'm going to just, what can I do? I don't fancy any of these men. They're all old. me. I want a young person because the last time I experienced this, I was young. And that's, I think, why she hires someone so much younger than her, but also because it makes him far away, you know,

it's not someone who's going to judge her necessarily. She can feel, not for long, obviously, but she can feel like in the stronger position because she's, I was just thinking, well, he, you know, obviously, and then, of course, he walks in through the door and she thinks, what have I done? And also she thinks, how could I possibly be, how can he find me acceptable? How could he possibly, I mean, everything she goes through is so, it's so much like seeing someone, you have a fantasy and you try and make it real. And the reality is just not what you were expecting, the opposite of what you were expecting. And she's unable to go through.

It's only Leo who makes her say, do you understand what you've done here? you want something and it's here and you can have it. I'm fine with that. You can have it. This is the deal. And she says, but I can't cope with what it is and I want. And I think that women are not encouraged to think about what they want anyway. It's always thinking about what everyone else wants.

And when they do, it's confusing. I mean, I can think of the number of times I've said, or someone said, what do you want? And I mean, obviously it's normally a martini, but, and that kind of covers all bases, because then you can at least relax enough to think about what I actually do I want. But my mum, you know, she would say, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know what I want, because she's never asked herself that. It's generational, you know, it is, but it's also very common. And Nancy's just, I love her.

She's very dignified. She's a very normal, ordinary woman. She's occasionally a bit bigoted and a bit stupid. about things and she's internalized all kinds of misogynistic attitudes which she parrots out, you know, and then is suddenly challenged by this incredibly intelligent young man who's sort of compassionate and humane and ironic and sees her. They see each other. And it's intimacy without romance, which is just, when do you see that? And she thinks, well, this hot young guy will come over I'll get what I'm looking for here and where it turns out to be is this very wise young man

who teaches her about all the things she's missing and who she really, what she deserves, it seems to me. Yeah. How did you build that chemistry before the cameras even started rolling? Because as you say, it is intimate in every way it can be with two people for 90-some minutes. Where did you begin with that, building that relationship? You know, you kind of build it as you play. We were really lucky because we had six days rehearsal, which is very unusual for a tiny movie.

We shot it in 19 days in lockdown in Norwich, so extraordinary. Because there was no downtime at all. So the intensity of that experience helped and we shot it chronologically. But during our rehearsal period, we blocked scenes. We didn't get to grips because we wanted it to be completely alive in the moment. That was the only way it was going to work. But one, on one of the days, the three of us, our director, Darrell and I, said, right, we need to just all take our clothes off and get used to the fact that at some point or other, the two of us are going to be naked on set and they'll be very set about this size, but with less people in it, actually, in a very close set. But still, you know, it's a big thing.

By the time we got to it, we were so, we'd earned it somehow, and we were so released. for both characters, that they were finally getting a moment of freedom and release and relaxation. And so it was rather a joy. It was very joy, but it was sort of like Christmas really. And I know that sounds very odd because it's very odd to us to think, as people who aren't in the business, what is it like to take your clothes off in front of, you know, anyone in a room of people that you don't actively know. But of course, it's really very normal and ordinary. We're just not used to it, that's all.

And so what was that scene like, the three of you? Well, I mean, we just sat and talked about our bodies piece by piece, really, examining them and saying, well, I've got this scar, and we talked about the bits that we liked and the bits that we didn't like and why they were the shape that they were. I mean, Adel was in very good shape because he'd been to the gym because Leo goes to the gym. You know, Nancy was, as you see her, because she's a teacher.

She's not a gym bunny. I mean, if Nancy had a six-pack, you'd just go, I don't believe that she does that or has that. She's a ex-R-E teacher in a 60s. She's in a lot of biscuits in the staff room. So, you know, it's not, she needed to have a very normal body. So it was all about, I'll tell you what it's about. It's about having trust in your audience as well. So in a sense, that is a leap of faith.

I trust the audience with this. I trust them. And that is what we're here for, actors. You know, challenge ourselves and trust your audience. Part of the heartbreak you talked about that you don't have to be a woman to understand, but I think anyone watching it will feel is sort of the unseen life or the unfelt life,

where Nancy says my kids didn't even notice when I was disappointed. You know, I was just sort of there to be their mother and move through life and sort of in this rut of our daily routines. And she finally, it took her that long at 63 to feel something. And she wanted so desperately to feel something. Do you feel like that's something that even you could relate to or that people watching this film will say, yeah, I see some of that. I've denied myself pleasure along the way in the interest of helping others. or my family or something else. Do you see that?

Yes, I do. I really do. I think there's a real distinction, though, between individualism and a materialism that we live in, which I don't think gives us much pleasure, actually. I think it just, in the end, disappoints every time I want that, so I'll get that, and then it'll be over, and I'll need something else. But to create a relationship with yourself that's sort of self-sustaining

means you don't need stuff from outside. It means that you can go inside yourself and have a relationship that's, you know, sort of nourishing. I think that's very hard to achieve, especially if you're there to serve other people, which women so often are, which is why I think they're not encouraged to entertain their own desires. And the question of female pleasure,

There's an even larger one, isn't it? Because we live in societies, and I say that in the plural, because it's across the globe and it's far worse in many other places, far worse than here, which have never put female pleasure at the top of any kind of agenda and, in fact, have repressed it on purpose in order to control women. So, again, that makes it not, it's not even part of when women started to express themselves. You know, I mean, even Virginia Woolf isn't talking about that. Room of One's Own or the early female authors who are writing out of women's experience.

I'm not talking about this kind of pleasure. And yet this kind of pleasure is free. And it's actually quite accessible. But in a way, all of us, men and women, have been taught not to respect sexual pleasure. To think of it as somehow animalistic and not part of our higher selves, you know. But actually, sexual pleasure, when it's connected to all the places, in our bodies where we feel it, which is not just in our groins, or at least at the best, it's not it. It's there, it's there often in your stomach that you feel it or here in the

chest area. And sometimes, you know, your mind's involved in it. So it's a kind of full body and soul experience. And spiritually it's hugely important. And we don't, we've never recognize that because our systems have outlawed it, actually. So, and I think that Nancy understands that And she goes, but surely it can't just be that. Surely it's not just this hidden, forbidden thing that I, because I remember that moment. She remembers that moment when she's touched by this boy when she's 16. And none of that has prevented her.

She's not brainwashed yet by the rules. And she suddenly feels this extraordinary thing. And that's when, you know, your boundaries melt with really beautiful proper sexual pleasure. you're bound, you're suddenly, you know, are one with the universe. I'm sorry to go all like spooky on it. But I do think that that's the case and I think that it's denied, it's denied to a lot of us and I'm not just women. And I think it's the cause of a great deal of unhappiness.

I also think it's at the root of a great deal of mental health difficulties and violence. I'm afraid. So it's a big conversation, but it's one that it, this film, so wonderful to start that conversation with because it's a joyful, happy, beautiful pleasure of a film. It absolutely is. And as you say, that repression ranges from cultural mores to vicious physical repression of women's sexual pleasure.

We were talking about the body image before we started ranging from a woman like Nancy to a teenage girl on Instagram these days. it does feel like an uphill climb right now. If you're a parent or you're a young woman in our culture, the images that are out there that you have to hold yourself up to, it can be impossible. It can feel I could never live up to that. Yeah.

How do we get past that? It's a big job, I know. It is a big job. I mean, again, this is part of it. You have to tell these kinds of stories and put these kinds of bodies on the screen. Otherwise, how can you fight the iconography? You know, you're right and you're a father and you know you have a teenage daughter.

But, you know, there are eight-year-olds out there going, I don't like my thighs. Eight-year-olds. So this is a problem that exists for children. You know, it's not about being old. It's about not being able to look at your body and go, that's my body. You don't need to say, what a wonderful body. You know, you don't need to, but what you really need not to do is waste your time, your energy, your passion, your purpose in life, thinking you've got to make it different because you can't really. I mean, I suppose if you spend six hours in the gym every day and not eat, you can change it to some extent.

But then everything else in your life has been completely destroyed. It's just awful what we've done to ourselves. And it's particularly for women, it's such a waste of our time. and you can't do a whole lot about it. You're never going to achieve that ideal. Exactly. You can't do anything about it except by perhaps trying to live in your body as it is. This is where I live.

It's like my house, you know. And as such, if I don't accept it and love it to a certain degree, I mean, I have to look at it and think I'm so gorgeous. That's too much to ask, I think, given what we've been brain. washed with and I think it's hard for men as well. But it's different because appearance has not been written into the status of men in the same way as it has been into the status of women. So that's where, you know, we're on completely different playing fields. And my answer to it, as with what I have to give, is this movie, which I couldn't have made five to ten years ago.

Now, why do you say that? You could have made it five, ten years ago? Because I think I wouldn't have written ready myself, but I also think that the Me Too movements and the mainstream discussion about consent and abuse and all of that, coming into a much more mainstream, that has changed the landscape. And I think that the film lands in a completely different way

because of that discussion. Because we have actually, we've been involved in that discussion about what is acceptable and what isn't acceptable. for some years now. And whilst there's a long way to go, that's changed things. Thank God. Yeah.

I read a quote from you in an interview where you said, I stopped trying to starve myself a long time ago in Hollywood. And yet, look at the career you've had. Have you felt that pressure over the course of your career to look like something or to achieve some ideal? Absolutely. No, I've actually had this thought in my mind, which is they want me to go to L.A.

I can't go to L.A. I'm actually too fat. Oh, come on. I'm too fat to go to L.A. No, I've had that thought many times in the past when I was younger. Because you think of Hollywood and you think of those ideals and go, I don't fit. I will never fit ever. That's absolutely been my experience, to be honest.

And frank with you, that has been my experience. And you have to ask other actors about theirs, I can't compare it to anybody's. But, you know, when I meet other actors, they're so tiny. They're so tiny. I mean, unreal. So I just look at them and go, how do you, how do, I don't know how you do that. I don't know how you sustain that.

And have a lot. I don't understand it. So this is a, you know, it's a discussion that we don't really have very often. but I hope we will open that Pandora's box. So how did you get past that? Was it success? Was it winning an Oscar? Was it, oh, I can do this and be me?

I don't have to achieve something that I think Hollywood wants me to be. But don't forget, I'm a character actor. I'm not a juvenile lead. I was never that. I was never the sort of glamorous, sexy lead type woman. You know, I mean, I hit Hollywood with Howard's End. you know, a blue stocking with slightly too many teeth. You know, it wasn't like, you know, I was ever a glamour figure

or a kind of sexualized figure, quite the opposite, I think, actually, which was probably the attraction in the sense that I was sort of different. And I never took those roles because I didn't think they were suitable and was very rarely offered them. And if I've rarely... a script which described the person I was being asked to look at as beautiful I would stop reading it really yeah absolutely because you assumed it wasn't for you I just thought it's not I can't do that I just can't do it it's not right for me and this is early in your career this are all the way

through I would still wouldn't do it I still wouldn't do it yeah yeah absolutely not that's why I've actually I think had quite an interesting time of it because I think the stuff I've chosen has not been just because of that but you know I've necessarily because of my mindset my politics, my feminism, the way in which I think about the world, the way in which I look at characters

and choose them, you know, I'm not interested in presentation of that kind. So it's also, you know, it's very clear what I might be. interested in. So people will see that and I think you undersell yourself but I won't try to convince you here. Then you're responding in a very sort of a way I don't think you really mean. Forgive me that I don't mean to patronise or anything at all but but I'm not underselling myself. I'm just I'm just seeing what is. Yeah. That's all. You know, I don't think it's important

necessarily to be thin and beautiful. I'm not saying that that's something I think is important and I'm underselling myself because I can't achieve that. Now, I think that's probably quite an important distinction to make. Certainly I might think I was inappropriate, but that's a relief more than anything. You know, because then I get to play things that I think are more interesting. I mean, look, you know, in my 40s,

I just remember being offered the, Don't do that, darling, it's too brave. Oh, my God. Is it, is it Jeff? Oh, God. He did the thing. He did the brave, heroic thing. I told him he shouldn't do.

He should be home with us with the family. That, though, there's so many of those roles in my 40s. I just said, no, thank you. No, thank you. That was a wonderful performance, by the way. I know. I would have done them so well. I would have done them very well.

Don't go do the brave thing, honey. We need you here. Hey guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Emma Thompson right after the break. Welcome back now more of my conversation with Emma Thompson. Can I ask you about your origins in acting? Obviously, you're the daughter of two actors. And you came up through Cambridge Footlights and did all those prestigious things that one does along the way. At what point did you decide for yourself that this was not just, a hobby, but a career. This is who I'm going to be. This is what I'm going to do. Well, I knew, as you say, by actors, and I knew that by the time I'd gone to the, okay, the Avignon Theatre Festival and seen a production of Racine's Fedra 16 times, where, by the way, all the actors took their clothes off. Is that right? Full circle. Full circle. Full circle. And I wrote to my dad,

and I said, I really want to do this. I don't know what quite, because later I wanted to be Lily Tomlin. I wanted to do the Jane Wagner Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe stuff. I wanted to do character comedy, which I did for a long time. I didn't do straight acting until I was 10 years later until I was about 26. So how old were you when you told your father? 16. Oh, wow.

Very young. So that was it from that point? No, it wasn't because I went into footlights and I was doing comedy. So I wanted to be a comedian and was a comedian, including a stand-up comedian, until I was 26. So, you know, the acting is different to that. And, you know, I often think how different life would have been if I had done comedy because that's a very different sort of, lonelier, I would have thought. I think you could do stand up to this day.

You've got the charisma, the Joe gets you in that. flick special. Yeah. Yeah. Do you hear that? There you go. So what's the jump then from comedy to dramatic actor? How did that happen?

I was working with Robbie Coltrane, the Scottish actor, who was about to do a series, a great series called Tootie Frutti, written by John Byrne, a Scottish series. And they said, we need a girl who can do a Scottish accent. And he said, I'm half Scottish. ask her. So that was it, and that's where it started. Is that right? Yeah.

And the first day on set, I thought, I'm a bit nervous, actually. And then I thought, I suppose it's like playing a sketch only just for longer. So that's how I approached it. I don't think it is like playing a sketch, but for longer, but now. But at the time it was a help. Got you through that moment. Right, right, right. And you go, this is a bit later, of course, you go on.

on this incredible run that starts, as you imagine, with, as you mentioned with Howard's End, where you win an Academy Award right out of the gate. Was that shocking to you to have suddenly been thrust to the top of Hollywood's list effectively? It was shocking. It's a very good word. Yeah. Shocking to you professionally. I got a chest infection.

I mean, I was just appalled. You know, it was too much, actually. It's a big glare. It was really scary. You're supposed to go and do all this. but I just got ill and ended up in a sanatorium for a couple of, like a week, just trying to recover before I could get over there and do the thing. Because of the attention and all the things that came with it.

Something you weren't accustomed to. No, no, I don't think it's entirely healthy. But you're not giving it back. No, nobody's asked me. I mean, you know. And then you can. go on that incredible run through 92 and 93 and into 95 with sense and sensibility where you win the Oscar for the adapted screenplay for writing it, which is quite a task to take on,

quite a challenge to take on as your first writing project. Let's do Jane Austen and put it into film. What possibly compelled you to take on something that large and that beloved? Well, obviously I didn't have the idea. Our wonderful producer, Lindsay Duran, had seen my sketch comedy show in which there was a sketch about Full Circle again. A woman coming home to her mother having had a strange experience with her husband, who she's trying to explain it to her mother. And she says, I think this is something to do with his work.

But anyway, he brought home a small pink hairless mouse. and was requiring me to look at it and touch it, and it changed shape, and then it appeared to drop off. I don't know what it was, but it was some sort of experiment. Anyway, she realized that this is a woman who has never been told about a fact of life, doesn't know that men even have penises, has had this experience, has gone home to her mother to say, could you help me with this?

Because I don't know what. And he seems a little sad. And her mother doesn't know what to say to her. Her sister's very interested as the young sister. I want to hear more about the mouse. Anyway, the small pink hairless mouse was what, was what Lindsay persuaded Lindsay that I might be a good person to adapt Jane Austen. I can't figure that one out for myself.

But nonetheless, that's what brought her to me. And she said, do you feel like trying to address? that sense and sensibility and I said, okay, I'll give it a go. And the first, because I loved Jane Austen and knew her very, very well because I studied English and written a lot about her and learned a lot about her. And I'd been reading her since I was a child. So, and she's very funny, very funny. So I said, okay, I'll have a go. The first script was 350 pages long. You know, it was like the Abel Gantz version. And then we just worked and worked and worked for five years, you know, redoing it, redoing it,

Lindsay's notes, and I would redo the draft and redo the draft and redo the draft. And we finally ended up with the script that you know. But, I mean, Lindsay as an editor, to me, you know, that was so important. Because I asked Ruth Prova Jabbarra from Merchant Ivy, he said, what do you do? She said, just adapt the whole book. And then you'll see what works dramatically. And it's actually very interesting because particularly in classics,

there are scenes you think, I can't do without. That's going to be the best scene. That's just going to be the best one. And you make it, and it's so not the best one, and it ends up being cut from the movie. That's what's interesting about adaptation and the distillation of any kind of great work. It's very unexpected what works on Canada,

camera. Fascinating. And you have to get it right because there are people who love Jane Austen love the book so much. They're waiting with bated breath. What are they going to do with this? Absolutely. It's a little bit of pressure, I imagine. No, and I mean the Jane Austen society is like the militant wing is heavily armed. You know, and I mean, I met a woman on the plane who found out that I cut one of the characters, Lucy's sister Anne. And she literally stopped talking to me mid-sentence and walked away.

I mean, obviously, to go and get something to hurt me with, because she was so appalled. I mean, it's interesting. People have strong feelings. They have very strong feelings. Surprisingly strong feelings. But generally people were happy. It turned out well.

It turned out okay. Yeah. Except for the publicity wing, or I can't remember who rang me for a mum from the studio and said, we just wondered if you'd be interested in writing. the novel from the film. And I said, it's adapted from...

Yes, we know that. I mean, as a human being, this wonderful woman said, I agree with you, I love that. As a human being, I agree with you. But as a studio executive, what I want you to do is write another version of sense and sensibility

from the version that you've taken from the original novel. I've been laughing about that for 40 years. It's fantastic. Oh my gosh. That's a perfect Hollywood story. I agree with you.

Yeah. Please repaint the Mona Lisa. Yeah. That idea. The movie you've said people ask you about most is love actually. It's a classic. Every holiday season, especially. It's always on.

You always have to stop and watch it. Why do you think that movie has resonated and endured in the way that it has? Because of what it's about. Because Richard Curtis is. such a large-hearted man wanted to say, you know, it's all there is. And we know that, deep down, we know that that's all there is. And that's the message of the film, bottom line. It's the only thing that matters. It's the only thing of any importance, you know. I know I got the lighting in this room right, and I'm pleased about that. But you know what? In the end, it doesn't matter.

All that matters is love. That's it. And there's a little bit, tell me if I'm making a leap, there's a little bit of Nancy in your character in that she's pushing a lot down. She's suppressing a lot. She's enduring a lot. Yeah. Those famous scenes where you are crying and then flip the switch and okay kids, it's Christmas or okay kids, your recital was perfect, all those moments. That I think a lot of people saw some of themselves. Well, yeah, because in order to be a sort of skillful and indeed efficient human being, which we do have.

have to be for our children and our parents and all of the folk that we look up, we can't constantly be in a state of, I'm feeling this, so I'll just stop everything while I feel it. I mean, you know, it's not necessarily repression, and Austin's got a lot to say about that, you know, that it's not necessarily that you're just having to sort of, you can't go down upset because the children will be upset and they'll never forget that moment when their mother's in a terrible, so of course she, it's practical and it's kind and it's. And it's it's an act of love to repress your emotions sometimes. It's terribly,

terribly important to be able to do that, to navigate them, to learn the skill with which navigate your feelings. I mean, that's the journey from childhood to adulthood, isn't it? So it's just, there's a difference,

though, between learning to navigate with skill, your emotional life, and knowing when what you're doing is avoiding something that you need to address, because it's hurting you or it's making you ill. Those are such beautiful heartbreaking scenes for your character. Do you stop and watch Love Actually if it's on like the rest of us?

Are you a viewer of your own work? I'm not in Love actually very much. And if it is on, I always sort of look at it and go, oh, no, oh, God, we all look so young. God, look at you, good hair. That's, I mean, that's, what was that name? And then I go and make the dinner. That's what happens. That's it.

I promise I'm not going down your IMDB page, but last one I have to ask you, but you're like, what year are we on? Hang on. Yeah. The Harry Potter series introduced you to an entirely new audience. Was that fun to be a part of that and to play that character? It was such fun. I mean, you know, you must remember it's a tiny little part of my life because I'm in them so little. So, I mean, really, the two weeks I spent doing the first one with the second film it was with Alfonso Quaron was huge fun.

And thereafter, it's, you know, it's very much a flying visit. So they don't, they don't, you know, I'm not kind of connected in that way. And I'm just glad that all those kids got so much pleasure and joy out of the movies and the books. You know, that's a... It's nice to be a part of something. It's really nice to be a part of something like that. Stick around for more of my conversation with Emma Thompson right after a quick break. Welcome back.

Now the rest of my conversation with Emma Thompson. You mentioned your activism, all the things you work on. I've talked to some actors who say the only good thing about being this famous is that I can use it to promote other causes. Do you feel that way that obviously your work is your work? and you lead with that, but that it is another path, a vehicle for you to bring attention to other causes like human rights around the world and climate change and all the other things that you work on. Yeah, I do.

I do think it's good. I think it's probably necessary. I mean, I've always, always been involved in activism since I was 19, so since long before I've had that kind of amplified voice. I think it's a, you know, it's a slightly double-edged sword. And you have to be very careful about how you use it because fame's quite a toxic state, I would say, in the sense that it reduces your humanity

rather than expanding it. It's interesting. The larger your presence in terms of fame is, the less human you will be seen and perceived and felt to be, which feels like a... a sort of contradiction in terms, but actually isn't, you know. So whatever happens to you, no one will care.

No one will care. And that is very important to understand that. There should be a handbook because people think that somehow fame involves being loved, which is not the case. It involves being well known. And yes, there may be affection. There may be a genuine sort of feeling, because especially if you're making films that engage in people's deeper emotions.

They're not just there to thrill, which is a wonderful thing. You know, I like going to see some films where I'm just going to go for a big ride and I call them phew phew films. I love those, you know, really enjoy them and find them very. But, like I say, that's what it is. So you do have to navigate. Very carefully. And know what you're talking about and know why you're doing it.

And how, in what way you can be useful? So, for instance, if I'm doing human rights stuff, I think that the fourth sector or the charity sector, the NGO sector, non-governmental organisations, the fact that I have to explain the acronym speaks for itself. Because their language is often very abstruse and arcane and full of abstractions, full of shorthand. You know, because it's its own world.

And so my job was to go and make a kind of human connective tissue by visiting places, talking to people, writing about it so that there was a connection being made between the people who wanted to learn about something that needed to be addressed over here, but needed to hear about it in a kind of human way. So in a sense, it's the same job. It's telling stories. It's telling human stories. So, you know, it's a kind of, in a way, it's a journalistic job. Right. And people will stop and listen. And they might stop and listen because you're drawing the spotlight a bit.

And sometimes it can be very helpful. I'm thinking about Matthew McConaughey just last week in Washington talking about guns because that happened in his hometown and people did. Whether that's the right reason to stop and listen or not, but you know his face and you listen and he had something to say. Or Princess Diana going and touching an AIDS patient. You know, that's a very good use. for a time, you know, very good use of fame. And it's very toxicity, actually.

Well, you're using your fame beautifully. And thank you for making this film. I think people are going to love it. It's great to talk to you. And you, and you, really. Thanks very much for I really enjoyed that. My big thanks again to Emma for a great conversation. You can catch her new film. Good luck to you, Leo Grand, streaming now on Hulu. And my thanks to all of you, as always, for tuning in again this week. If you want to hear more of these conversations with our guests, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in, of course,

to Sunday today every weekend on your television over there on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.