E-mail a friendEmma Thompson
airdate January 13, 2009
Emma Thompson has won Oscars for both acting (Howard's End) and writing (Sense and Sensibility). She also has an Emmy to her credit. Born in London, into a family of actors, she embarked on her career in entertainment with stints on BBC radio and touring with comedy shows. She's since starred in a string of critically acclaimed and award-winning films and TV productions. Thompson studied at Cambridge and was part of its famous Footlights Group. She's currently starring in the romantic drama, Last Chance Harvey.
Oscar-winning actress and screenwriter tells how living on the same street that she grew up on has kept her grounded. (2:56)
Full interview. (13:54)
Emma Thompson
Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome Emma Thompson to the program. The two-time Oscar winner has starred in so many notable films, including, of course, "Howard's End," "Sense and Sensibility," "Remains of the Day." She's also played Hillary Clinton, of course, in the Mike Nichols film "Primary Colors."
Her latest project, though, is called "Last Chance Harvey," which also stars some guy named Dustin Hoffman.
Emma Thompson: Who?
Tavis: (Laughs.) Here now a scene from "Last Chance Harvey."
[Clip]
Tavis: So how remarkable is Dustin Hoffman?
Thompson: I think he's probably one of the greatest actors who's ever really been at it. He's kind of one of a handful, because he's completely original. You can't compare him to any other actor. He doesn't do anything like any other actor, do you know what I mean? He's just unique. And I know he's been through patches of being very sort of difficult -- he has -- and he's very kind of clear and candid about that.
But he isn't anymore. He's terribly wonderful now. But he hasn't lost his exacting, artistic, kind of creative nature, so every single moment -- it might look easy but he just works it and works it and works it. He's a remarkable man.
Tavis: I like that phrase: "exacting, artistic, creative nature." (Laughter.) An Emma Thompson original. This is a strange question -- are there things about -- I'm not talking about names; I don't want you to out anybody -- are there things about actors who you work with that you revel in, that you love working with actors who have this kind of methodology, this kind of style, and are there other -- is there another category of style that you like? I don't like working with actors whose method is this way on the set.
Thompson: Well, definitely, yeah, definitely. I think that actors who are too sort of self-aware and self-conscious aren't really -- well, they're not really doing it, actually, because they're thinking about what they're projecting, what they're giving out, and so they're doing it for someone.
You can only do it and the camera catches what you're doing, that's a kind of byproduct. But you've got to just be there, being that person, and not thinking about what effect you're having on anybody. And then you're able to play, because you've got no agenda, if you know what I mean.
I think some actors do have an agenda, even if it's where's my light and what side your face looks better on. We are all given to vanity, I suppose; all of us. But there's a difference between kind of feeling that you look all right and you're good enough to do the job and down and out narcissism, which also exists. And that's difficult to be near.
Tavis: Speaking of agenda, is there an agenda for the kinds of choices that you make? And if there is, I haven't figured out what it is because the choices seem to be all over the place -- which I like.
Thompson: Yeah. I guess that's it. I guess I just connect with a piece of material. And this thing was very peculiar because the writer-director had written it years ago for me to do with -- I can't remember who it was at the time. I think he was thinking about Gene Hackman. And for some reason or other nothing happened, nothing happened, and then Dustin and I did "Stranger than Fiction."
And we loved working together so much, it was so -- it's a bit -- I don't really know how to describe it. I can't analyze it but it's like suddenly you're a tributary and you come into this river and you're flowing together at the same time and in the same way. It's like streams of water coming together.
Tavis: Do you write poetry?
Thompson: No. (Laughs.)
Tavis: You should. (Laughter.) You're pretty good at this thing, at these descriptions. Just an idea, just an idea.
Thompson: Okay.
Tavis: How would you -- I was trying to figure out my best way to describe this and I've been thinking about it for a few minute and I still -- I'm stuck here. How would you describe this film?
Thompson: I'd say it was a subtle, funny, grown-up romance.
Tavis: Okay.
Thompson: Something that -- that's what would make me want to go and see it. But kids like it too. We were in the theater last night and this little 10-year-old geezer called Theodore sitting there who really liked it. (Laughter.) I said, "But you're 10." He said, "So?" That's fair enough.
So I think it really is for everybody. It's not just about -- for older people or. And that seems absolutely insane. I think there are certain films that are made with very specific audiences in mind, like all the stuff that's made for 17-year-old boys and 15-year-old girls, and you can kind of see that. And of course a lot of that is going to be made in the next couple of years because of the crises and all of that.
However, there's room now, I think -- really room -- for something that has subtlety and depth. Emotional depth, particularly, I think really is missing from an awful lot of movies today.
Tavis: To your brilliant point now, when you look at a script that comes across your desk and you know that it's not written to capture that audience of movie-goers, the ones you referenced earlier, who are going to go see it three, four, five times and make it an international blockbuster. Does that ever impinge upon the choices you make?
Thompson: No, because I don't have a lifestyle to sustain, do you know what I mean? If I was choosing in relation to earnings, then that would be a problem if I had a kind of lifestyle I had to sort of maintain. I don't really have overheads. I think an awful people have big, big overheads in this business.
Tavis: You live on the street or something? (Laughter.)
Thompson: I don't live on -- well, I live on the same street I grew up in.
Tavis: Oh, okay. (Laughter.)
Thompson: So it's like I live very, very similarly to -- and by doing that, I think I've protected myself and my choices quite effectively so I can choose to do something where there's a budget of, like, 2 pounds 50. And then occasionally, you get the chance to do something that makes a bit of money. But you must leave yourself free if you want to make choices that make you happy artistically. You must be free to do that.
Tavis: Sounds to me like your being grounded -- I'm just trying -- tell me about this neighborhood you live in and why you're still in the same neighborhood where you grew up in.
Thompson: Well, it's a bit peculiar. I'm quite unusual, because most people in London have moved around a lot. But I was born in this street and 49 years later I'm still living in it. I've lived in four different houses in the street.
Tavis: Yeah. Same street, though.
Thompson: Two apartments -- same street.
Tavis: (Laughs.) You really like this street.
Thompson: It's kind of weird, yes. And of course everyone else feels faintly infiltrated by me, as my mum lives opposite as well, my sister and brother-in-law and kids, they used to live up the street as well. So it's very much a -- and I think that keeps you grounded as well, because there's some -- everyone knows everyone. So Mr. Carmelli is the Italian mechanic who lives at the top of the street who all through my life has been shouting at me.
Like, "How do you do (unintelligible)" and "Why you haven't got babies now?" and all that stuff going on. I say, "Shut up, Mr. Carmelli." I'm trying to maintain a dignified existence in this street, and he just keeps on (unintelligible) about the Gulf War -- every war that every happened, obviously. "You can't save the world on your own." (Laughter.) So that kind of keeps you -- it keeps you solid.
Tavis: Did you have a choice other than this acting thing? And I ask that because the mother and the sister you referenced earlier, the father, even -- did you have much of a choice here?
Thompson: Well, I thought I did. Clearly, I was wrong. But I was going to be a comedian, you see. I did stand-up and sketch comedy with the likes of Hugh Laurie, actually. Our first jobs were together doing sketch comedy in Australia and Manchester and other glamorous places like that.
And I did that till I was 27 years old. That's when I started straight acting, and that was a complete accident. Because I was working with a comedian who went to do a straight job; they needed a girl, she needed to have a Scottish accent and my mum's Scottish. She said, "Oh, Em can do it, Em can do it -- she's done Scottish accents in sketches."
So I turfed up, did this job, got another job, and it kind of happened completely accidentally. I never meant to do it at all.
Tavis: It's almost amazing to hear that back story of your life. In this conversation I can see that you have a sense of humor, but you've played these roles and certainly the period pieces that you've done, I would never have thought of you as a comedian before you --
Thompson: No, but I think it's really important to have that background. Do you know who else has the same background -- exactly the same background -- is Maggie Smith. She and I were both in Cambridge Footlights.
Tavis: Same way, yeah.
Thompson: With the Monty Python lot. Obviously, they're a little bit before me. But I think that dramatic acting is underpinned best by comedy. You've got to somehow underneath know where the humor is. I think that's very helpful.
Tavis: Tell me how -- I'm sure this is connected somehow to your being such a grounded person -- your humanitarian work that I've read so much about over the years, why, for you, how did that happen? Where did that sense of community come from? Maybe it's being on the same street your whole life.
Thompson: Yeah, it could be, it could be. The sense of community, world community, is something that I feel very, very strongly. Indeed, we have an adopted son who's from Rwanda. He's an ex-child soldier who's 21 now and studying social and political science. I'm fascinated by the imbalances in the world and I feel as though it's important to try and offer something towards the rebalancing of whatever's going on. There are such terrible things. I'm involved in trafficking at the moment.
Tavis: Human trafficking?
Thompson: It's huge. Yeah, human trafficking. It's the biggest growth industry, really, after drugs, and it's massive. So last year we put together an installation based on the life of a trafficked woman and the experience of a trafficked -- seven shipping containers, and people go through, and in each container there's an aspect of the story.
And people came out -- thousands of people went through. I took it to Vienna, to the U.N., in February of this year. Next year I'm going to take it to New York. So you should come by and see it.
Tavis: I'll be happy to. I think that some people find, with all the good work that you're doing in this regard, I think there's some stories, there are some issues that people just find -- how might I put this? -- too incredulous to be real. Nobody -- not nobody, because obviously you do it and many other people do.
But many people, I think, just don't accept, can't wrap their brain around the fact that humans are being trafficked in that way.
Thompson: Oh, I agree. To be honest with you I think people are in denial about it, literally. They just say, "No, no, no, no, it's not like that. They're all sort of giving themselves over, these women, to become prostitutes, because it's a way of getting into the country and they're lying about the fact that they've literally been kidnapped and tortured and beaten until they submit to this awful slavery."
And it's a very important story, and I thought -- it has been told on film but I think sometimes when you watch things on film that are so disturbing and you don't feel that you can do anything about them and therefore there's no catharsis, I think -- that's why I chose to tell that story in an artistic installation way, because I thought at least then people will be in it.
They'll feel engaged with it, rather than sitting and watching it on the screen, do you know what I mean? I think sometimes when terrible stories are told on screen it's easier to keep them at arm's length. You switch off the telly, that's it; you've had no human engagement. And it's a very, very good teaching tool, but I think that's -- the installation for me was a huge eye-opener.
I've never tried to tell a story like that and I've never seen responses from people coming out of the installation weeping and in such a raw condition.
Tavis: See, what I'd like to know is what your mechanic says after he sees it. "You can't save the world by yourself, Emma."
Thompson: No, but you can do a little bit towards it.
Tavis: Exactly, that's what I'm saying -- I would love to know what he says after he sees that project. (Laughter.) Before I let you go, I have to ask you about this. "My Fair Lady?" Did I get this right?
Thompson: You did.
Tavis: You're working on the --
Thompson: I did, I am.
Tavis: You are a bold woman.
Thompson: I am.
Tavis: You are a bold --
Thompson: I am. (Laughter.)
Tavis: So tell me about it right quick.
Thompson: Okay. Well, it's fascinating, you see, because actually --
Tavis: It's so perfect, though, wasn't it?
Thompson: It -- well, it's very theatrical. I think that whilst you're not improving on it, you can do a different version of it that is realer and is more emotional.
Tavis: Okay.
Thompson: So that's what -- those were the notes that Universal gave me. That's what they want. So what's been so interesting about it is working, as it were, posthumously with George Bernard Shaw. So reading him, reading his letters, exploring his personality as a man, his relationships with women, and pinching bits and using them to make Higgins very like Shaw.
It's -- well, we'll talk about it when it comes out, which will be, like, 2011. I'll probably be dead. (Laughter.)
Tavis: When it comes out, you promise to come back, though?
Thompson: Sure will.
Tavis: All right. Because there's so much more to talk about.
Thompson: There is.
Tavis: By then, I'm sure you will have changed at least half the world, if not the whole thing. (Laughter.) Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman. The new movie, "Last Chance Harvey," opened, of course, on Christmas Day. At a theater near you right about now. Nice to have you on the program.
Thompson: Thank you, Tavis, for having me.
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