16 The Times Magazine
capable of tackling serious issues as they are
executing the perfect pratfall.
In these days of #MeToo and “feminist”
T-shirts in H&M, it’s hard to remember
just how alone Thompson was, culturally,
back then.
“I remember, during Alfresco, we
[Thompson, Fry and Laurie] did a gig at the
Birmingham Exhibition Centre. We were at
the Philips Small Appliances campaign dinner
and we went on... well, I was on after the
stripper. She was giving a demonstration of
the Philips Ladyshave, topless. I said to the
boys, ‘I’m not doing this. We can’t do this,’ and
they said, ‘But Em, if we don’t do it, we won’t
get paid.’ I just thought, well, we’ve come all
this way, I’d better do it then. So I put on a
huge tam-o’-shanter and a long raincoat and
sang a comic song about a Scottish castle to
all these blokes in suits. And it’s not as if these
things don’t still happen – it’s like those sex
parties in Silicon Valley where the women,
if they go, they’re sluts, and if they don’t go,
they’re killjoys who don’t get promoted. At
least I don’t get invited to them.”
It’s this very clear-eyed knowledge of who
has, and abuses, power that informs much
of Thompson’s life. She was one of the most
high-profile people to speak out about Harvey
Weinstein, giving a half-hour interview to
Emily Maitlis on Newsnight in which she
called him a “predator” and a “bully” who
was “the tip of the iceberg” of harassment
in Hollywood. She noted, “I spent my twenties
trying to get old men’s tongues out of my
mouth,” and added that she’d threatened to
walk from Brideshead Revisited when a male
executive told a female co-star, Hayley Atwell,
to lose weight. “I will always speak up because
I am bolshy, and I will take someone’s head off
if I see anything like that.”
For some reason, it’s this bolshiness
- whether talking about Weinstein or climate
change – that seems to irritate Thompson’s
detractors. Why can’t she just be one of
Britain’s greatest actors and gracefully keep
her mouth shut? Like lovely Dame Judi
Dench. She never gets political. Or Dame
Maggie Smith. So lovely. So quiet.
“There seems to be this belief that you
can’t have or hold moral principles – ones
you’ve had for decades – if you’re also
trotting up red carpets decked out like a
Christmas f***ing pony,” Thompson says
animatedly. “Either you’ve got to go around
in grey linen and speak about the horrors of
the world, or you get into lots of sequins and
tap-dance up that glittery rug – but you can’t
do both. And that’s mad. Because human
beings, apart from anything else, are so
much more complicated and complex than
that. We all are. I don’t know why there’s
this resistance towards acknowledging we’re
such a mixture. And besides, I can’t just
‘pick one’ – I don’t have access to acting, that
thing that I do, without the moral thing. It
comes with it. I can’t extricate it. The energy
cells are weirdly connected.”
In what way?
“The energy that comes from one’s sort
of perennial fury at what’s done in the world- to women in particular, but all injustice.
It informs my decisions and my writing and
everything I do. Maybe it would be nice to
ignore it. But for me, it’s just not possible.”
Hence getting her kit off for Leo Grande.
“I knew I couldn’t not do this movie,” she says
firmly. “I knew it had to be made.”
It’s important, she says, because – as one
of the most successful actresses in the world - she knows exactly how difficult it is to get a
movie made about any female character who
isn’t a sexy 25-year-old kung-fu scientist able
to banter with her (10 years older, minimum)
male co-star.
Before our interview, she’d sent me an
email detailing the kind of notes that female
actors, writers and directors still get about
their projects: “Love stories are weak.” “We
need more female characters – just change
one of the men to a woman.” “Your female
character can’t cry – it makes her look
weak.” That last note was, amazingly, about
a character whose baby had just been
kidnapped. A writer noted, “I feel like I’m
limited to the following descriptors for female
characters: ‘bad-ass’, ‘smart-ass’, ‘kick-ass’,
‘hard-ass’, ‘strong’, ‘tough’, ‘tough as nails’,
‘fierce’ or ‘fearless’.”
Male characters get to explore all their
weaknesses – they get to be complex, deluded,
unpleasant, sex-addicted, greedy. Complex. We
get to see all their longings and wants. Thirty
years ago, Richard Gere was able to hire sex
worker Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman and
it was just a delightful, aspirational rom-com.
In 2022, Leo Grande sees a 55-year-old woman
hire a young, hot sex worker for a single
orgasm, and still the reviews have fretted
over the morality of it.
“Surely we’re allowed to have one movie- just one! – where a woman wants something
and does something men do all the time and
we get to see what happens next. Don’t we
want to know what that story is? How it might
change everyone involved?”
Including those who watch it: alongside
women jubilant about Thompson’s “look in the
mirror” moment, Thompson reports some of
the most interesting reactions have been from
male viewers, “young and old, having, maybe
for the first time, conversations about female
sexual pleasure. One older man said he saw
the film and immediately went home and
started to talk to his wife about what might
give her pleasure. For the first time.”
This is the kind of film that starts
conversations on a difficult topic. And it
simply wouldn’t have been made without
Thompson’s willingness to – whatever her own
beliefs about sex and nudity – roll around in
front of the cameras at 63 with her bra off.
Thompson has been a national treasure
for more than four decades – first as a pioneer
and now as an institution. I ask her what
advice she gives other women in the industry.
“Bono from U2 has this thing called ‘the Bono
Talk’,” I tell her. “He warns upcoming bands
about the pitfalls of fame, groupies and
money. Do you have a Dame Emma
Thompson Talk?”
“It’s interesting,” Thompson muses,
diplomatically. “I’m sure Bono gives brilliant
talks on how to cope with worldwide fame - but he’s probably talking to other men who
are already in successful bands. For me, I’m
talking to women who are still struggling, who
might be 40 and still trying to get their work
in front of anyone and get something made.
It’s more, ‘Love, have you got a babysitter?’
than, ‘Dude, these limos are the best.’ ”
It’s now getting late and so – having talked
about sex, pubes, feminism, power, abuse
and Birmingham – Dame Emma Thompson
finally finishes her Rocky chocolate bar.
“Conclusion? Tolerable.” She says a cheerful
“farewell” and goes off to jump in the cold
stream outside. Because her leg still aches,
and sometimes doing something that feels
at first shocking and painful – and maybe
initially unfathomable to other people - makes things better. n
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is released
in cinemas on June 17‘No one realises
quite how thin most
actresses are in real
life. They look unreal’
A scene from Good Luck to You, Leo Grande