Emma Thompson

Certainly, the face of Emma Thompson (London, England, 1959) began to resonate when she appeared on screen as the future wife of the King of England in the Shakespearean Henry V (1989); and then she could be seen in Still to Die (1991) , Peter’s Friends (1992) and Much Ado About Nothing (1993), films directed by Kenneth Branagh . The gossip soon learned that this gifted actress was also “the wife of Kenneth Branagh”, although her marriage to her former partner from the BBC television series Fortunes of WarIt would only last five years, between 1989 and 1994. Her current husband, since July 2003, with whom she has a daughter, is also actor Greg Wise .

The actress has not known motherhood until she was 45 years old, which speaks volumes about the difficulty that exists in the world of show business to reconcile work and family balance, love for children included. Because Emma Thompson, the prototype of the woman fully incorporated into the professional world, has dedicated her greatest energy to building a solid career as an actress and even a screenwriter. The rewards in the form of a statuette are in plain sight: the Oscar for Best Actress for Howards End (1992), and, surprise!, the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, Sense and Sensibility (1995), based on the novel. by Jane Austen , and conducted by the sensitive baton of the oriental Ang Lee. She has also been showered with nominations (for her work in In the Name of the Father (1993), The Remains of the Day (1993) and, as an actress, in Sense and Sensibility ) and BAFTA and Golden Globe Awards.

Nobody has given anything to Emma. She is a student of English literature at the University of Cambridge, there she was part of theater groups such as Footlighsts, where she coincided with Stephen Fry . It was in her family that her interpretive concerns were fed: her father, Eric, was a stage director and actor; the same as her mother, Phyllida Law , an actress with whom she has coincided in several films, most notably The Winter Guest (1997). Her little sister, Sophie, would also succumb to the charms of acting, and although they have not worked together, she has been seen in films like Gosford Park. But despite the family environment and her first steps when she was studying, the actress would not appear on television until 1983 and the cinema until 1989, at the age of thirty.

If Thompson owes a debt to any director, aside from Branagh, that someone is James Ivory . He gave him the role of a lifetime opposite Anthony Hopkins in Return to Howards End , a wonderful adaptation of EM Forster ‘s book , and he would repeat with director and actor in What Remains of the Day , a no less sharp adaptation of Kazuo ‘s novel ishiguro. Emma Thompson has a knack for immersing herself in the psychology of her characters, her shots revealing a rich inner world. Sometimes she seems to have too many words from her, in her pretty little head feelings that burn on the screen are boiling. The films cited, Shakespeare adaptations, allow character composition, and Emma takes advantage of them. Even minor roles such as the lawyer in In the Name of the Father and the role of her long-suffering wife in Love Actually , stand out in the set of these films.

Emma has known five years that could be defined as dry. After The Winter Guest , she played the wife of a sort of Bill Clinton, the real Hillary, in Primary Colors (1998). Ella e ella intervened in minor films such as El beso de Judas (1999) and Maybe Baby (2000). After providing her voice in the animated film Treasure Planet (2002), she has a title with Antonio Banderas pending release , the booed in Venice (not through her fault, it seems) Imagining Argentina . And we’ll see her soon as Professor Sybill Trelawney, teaching at Hogwart, in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban .