After taking her degree she
spent time working as a stand-up comic with a rather salacious
line of patter, but gradually moved into the West End stage
and television. "Fortunes of War", a series in which
she was involved, won the British Film and Television Academy
Award (BAFTA). She later wrote and acted in her own series, 11.11.04 0:27 AM It was during that formative
period that she met an ambitious young actor-director named
Kenneth Branagh, who had recently formed his own troupe, the
Renaissance Theatre Company. He ask her to marry him on his
knees in Central Park (New York) on her 30th birthday. They
embarked simultaneously on a professional and a personal relationship;
as is not uncommon in showbiz, the pressures of the first
eventually brought about the break-up of the second. However,
in the early days Branagh was a crucial influence on her work.
She made her film debut in
"The Tall Guy",
a satire on the world of the London theatre with Rowan Atkinson
and Jeff Goldblum, but she went on to make four films with
her husband. The first was "Henry
V", in which she played the rather thankless part
of the French princess Katherine, who is wooed in perfunctory
fashion by the warrior hero in the last scene. Nevertheless,
she managed to bring a touch of that spontaneous charm and
exuberance which have made her so popular.
Their second film together
was Branagh's first incursion into Hollywood, the thriller
"Dead Again",
a strange tribute to Hitchcock, which was coolly received.
But It was in 1992 -and not
with her husband- that her film career was really launched.
The prestigious Merchant-lvory team produced another of their
elegant, if rather stuffy, adaptations of a literary classic,
E. M. Forster's novel of Edwardian society, "Howard's
End". Her performance brought her an Oscar, but more
importantly it established her as a fine actress perfectly
equipped to play strong, sensitive, independent women, a line
that she has exploited with great success. It also teamed
her for the first time with Anthony Hopkins, with whom she
seems to have a particularly effective chemistry: they set
each other off to splendid effect in a much better Merchant-lvory
product, "Remains
of the Day". She was nominated for the best actress
Oscar for that too, but lost to Holly Hunter in another period
piece, The Piano.
Her two other films with
Branagh were "Peter's
Friends", in which she had a chance to exploit her
talents as comedienne in the role of the gawky New Age publisher's
assistant, Maggie, and "Much
Ado About Nothing", a joyful version of Shakespeare's
magnificent comedy. Beatrice is one of the most desirable
women's roles in the repertory and Thompson made the most
of it, strength tempered, by tenderness, a sharp wit covering
an underlying seriousness. It was on the Tuscan location that
she began work on her screenplay for Sense and Sensibility.
In the meantime she made
"In the Name
of the Father", taking the small part of the lawyer
who defends Daniel Day-Lewis.
In 1994 she went to Hollywood
for a rather surprising change of pace, "Junior",
the comedy in which she is a doctor caring for a pregnant
Arnold Schwarzenegger! But the same year brought a fascinating
part, Dora Carrington,
who was an exceptionally talented painter. However, the film
more or less ignores her professional career and concentrates
on her emotional life, especially her sexless but intensely
passionate friendship with the homosexual writer Lytton Strachey.
Although the title was "Carrington",
It was the Strachey character, superbly played by Jonathan
Pryce, that had the lion's share of the film. Nevertheless,
Thompson brought so much conviction to her role that the imbalance
was partially rectified.
In "Sense
and Sensibility" she plays the part of the eldest
sister Elinor, although the age difference between her and
Winslet is really too great. lt seems that she was not particularly
keen on the role, but producers and director insisted.
1996 was a annus mirabilis
for Emma Thompson; she became the first person -never mind
woman- ever to be nominated simultaneously for Academy Awards
for best actress and best adapted screenplay. In the first
category, which she had already won in 1992 for "Howard's
End", she had some formidable competition, and for
once justice was done when Susan Sarandon finally won an Oscar
that might well have been hers on five previous occasions.
The second category -Babe, Apollo 13, Il Postino and Leaving
Las Vegas- was also hotly contestad, but here she did triumph
with her splendid adaptation of Jane Austen's novel.
Emma Thompson took a year
reset in the middle of a lot of emotional changes. Once she
got divorced from Kenneth Branagh, who, according to the rumours,
cheated on her with Helena Bonham-Carter during the shooting
of "Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley", Emma started
a stable (until now) relationship with Greg Wise, whom met
in the "Sense
and Sensibility" set, where Wise played the unfortunate
Willoughby.
"The
winter guest" was her next movie, where she worked
with her mother and was directed by Alan Rickman, one of her
mates . It is a intimate film, set in the cold Scottish winter.
Then she went to Hollywood
for "Primary Colors",
based in a book about the am02.01.05 10:39 PMt scandal in its time. She was about to co-star
with Robert Redford the film "The Horse Whisperer",
but there was a problem with the shooting dates and finally
was Kristin Scott-Thomas who got the part.
She also was lined up to
play God in Kevin Smith's "Dogma", but she dropped
out at the end. She did, however, play an FBI agent in "Judas
kiss", alongside her friend Alan Rickman, in 1998,
but this was a film whose distribution was very limited (it's
only been shown in satellite TV in the UK, I believe in USA
went straight to video). Lately her only on-screen appearance
was a cameo in "Maybe Baby"
(written and directed by her friend Ben Elton), a comedy about
a couple (Hugh Laurie and Joely Richardson) who are trying
to conceive a child.
Off-screen, however, she
has learnt to speak Spanish and has written a script about
Victor Jara's life (a Chilean songwriter killed by the military
in the seventies) and she was trying to produce a movie with
it, she wanted Antonio Banderas for the main role and Pedro
Almodóvar as director.
1999 was a very busy time
for Ms Thompson, she embraced parenthood for the first time
with her partner Greg Wise on 4th December. She gave birth
to Gaia Romilly Wise at The Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth,
St John's Wood, London.
Next, Emma played a professor
dying with ovarian cancer in "Wit",
a HBO made for tv movie, directed by Mike Nichols based on
a play by Margaret Edson, whose filming started in London
in September 2000.
Her following project was
as an animated character in Disney's futuristic "Treasure
Planet", where she gave voice to a cat-captain named
Amelia.
Emma and Greg tied the knot
last July 2003 in their converted Scottish barn in Argyll,
their daughter Gaia was the flower girl and Greg wore a kilt,
even though it was raining. Then, they had a reception at
the 17th century Coylet Inn on the shores of Loch Eck. Emma
said: "This for me is heaven. It has been a wonderful day."
As they posed for pictures in pouring rain, she added: "We'll
need to get inside, Greg has got no knickers on."
At the moment, Emma has just
released the comedy "Love
Actually" (with Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman), "Angels
in America" (a HBO mini TV Series) and the movie
"Imagining Argentina"
(2003). Now, to impress Gaia, she has a part in the next Harry
Potter movie ("Harry
Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban"), where she will
be the excentric professor Trelawney, and she is filming her
adaptation of the "Nanny
Mcphee's diaries".
Emma is also a very active
trying to raise
awareness of AIDS in Africa and she has been there several
times to the black continent to witness for herself the wonderful
work of Action Aid in Uganda and Mozambique.
She has lived in the same
street all her life, in West Hampstead, in front of her mother's
house and in the same street than her sister. Her favourite
books are "The ascent and fall of the Third Reich"
by William L. Shirer and "Culture and Imperialism"
by Edward Said. She kept in her bag for years Virginia Wolf
's "a room for one".
I confess I really admire
this left-handed english woman, who declared herself against
both Gulf Wars and has her Oscars in the downstairs bathroom,
like she said: "because everyone goes there, I don't
have to bother running upstairs every time someone asks to
see it".
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