Emma Thompson

Dame Emma Thompson (born 15 April 1959) is a British actress and screenwriter.

She has received numerous accolades throughout her career spanning more than four decades, including two Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award.

Thompson was born in London on 15 April 1959.

Her mother is Scottish actress Phyllida Law, while her English father, Eric Thompson, was an actor best known as the writer–narrator of the popular children's television series The Magic Roundabout.

Her godfather was the director and writer Ronald Eyre.

She has a younger sister, Sophie, who is also an actress.

The family lived in the West Hampstead district of London, and Thompson was educated at Camden School for Girls.

She spent much time in Scotland during her childhood and often visited Ardentinny, where her grandparents and uncle lived.

In her youth, Thompson was intrigued by language and literature, a trait she attributes to her father, who shared her love of words.

After successfully taking A levels in English, French and Latin, and securing a scholarship, she began studying for an English degree at Newnham College, Cambridge, arriving in 1977.

Thompson believes that it was inevitable she would become an actor, remarking that she was "surrounded by creative people and I don't think it would ever have gone any other way, really".

While there, she had a "seminal moment" that turned her to feminism and inspired her to take up performing.

In 1980, Thompson served as the Vice President of Footlights, and co-directed the troupe's first all-female revue, Woman's Hour.

The following year, she and her Footlights team won the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for their sketch show The Cellar Tapes.

She graduated with upper second-class honours.

Thompson's father died in 1982, aged 52.

She has stated that this "tore [the family] to pieces", and "I can't begin to tell you how much I regret his not being around".

She added, "At the same time, it's possible that were he still alive I might never have had the space or courage to do what I've done ... I have a definite feeling of inheriting space. And power."

Thompson had her first professional role in 1982, touring in a stage version of Not the Nine O'Clock News.

She then turned to television, where much of her early work came with her Footlights co-stars Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry.

The regional ITV comedy series There's Nothing To Worry About! (1982) was their first outing, followed by the one-off BBC show The Crystal Cube (1983).

Born to actors Eric Thompson and Phyllida Law, Thompson was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she became a member of the Footlights troupe, and appeared in the comedy sketch series Alfresco (1983–1984).

There's Nothing to Worry About! later returned as the networked sketch show Alfresco (1983–84), which ran for two series with Thompson, Fry, Laurie, Ben Elton, and Robbie Coltrane.

In 1985, she starred in the West End revival of the musical Me and My Girl, which was a breakthrough in her career.

In 1987, she came to prominence for her performances in two BBC TV series, Tutti Frutti and Fortunes of War, winning the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for her work on both series.

In the early 1990s, she often collaborated with then-husband, actor and director Kenneth Branagh, in films such as Henry V (1989), Dead Again (1991), and Much Ado About Nothing (1993).

For her performance in the Merchant-Ivory period drama Howards End (1992), Thompson won the BAFTA Award and the Academy Award for Best Actress.

In 1993, she received two Academy Award nominations—Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress—for the respective roles of the housekeeper of a grand household in The Remains of the Day and a lawyer in In the Name of the Father, becoming one of the few actors to achieve this feat.

Thompson wrote and starred in Sense and Sensibility (1995), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay—making her the only person in history to win Oscars for both acting and writing—and once again won the BAFTA.

Further critical acclaim came for her roles in Primary Colors (1998), Love Actually (2003), Saving Mr. Banks (2013), Late Night (2019), and Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022).

Her television credits include Wit (2001), Angels in America (2003), The Song of Lunch (2010), King Lear (2018) and Years and Years (2019).

Other notable film credits include the Harry Potter series (2004–2011), Nanny McPhee (2005), Stranger than Fiction (2006), An Education (2009), Men in Black 3 (2012) and the spin-off Men in Black: International (2019), Brave (2012), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Cruella (2021), and Matilda the Musical (2022).

She explained in a 2007 interview how she discovered the book The Madwoman in the Attic, "which is about Victorian female writers and the disguises they took on in order to express what they wanted to express. That completely changed my life."

She became a self-professed "punk rocker", with short red hair and a motorbike, and aspired to be a comedian like Lily Tomlin.

At Cambridge, Thompson was invited into the Cambridge Footlights, the university's prestigious sketch comedy troupe, by its president, Martin Bergman, becoming its first female member.

Also in the troupe were fellow actors Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, and she had a romantic relationship with the latter.

Fry recalled that "there was no doubt that Emma was going the distance. Our nickname for her was Emma Talented."

She portrayed Mrs. Lovett in a Lincoln Center production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in 2014.

Authorised by the publishers of Beatrix Potter, Thompson has also written three Peter Rabbit children's books.

In 2018, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to drama.