Emma Thompson Oscar buzz, ‘Leo Grande’, ‘Love Actually’, Matilda – KristenBellTattoos.com

Christmas and Emma Thompson seem to go together. The famous two-time Oscar-winning actress not only co-starred in 2019. last christmas, But did it become a certified holiday classic, in 2003 Actually love a yuletide-set romantic comedy that has become so beloved, returns year after year, that ABC News recently devoted an entire Diane Sawyer hour to examining it.

On top of that, Thompson played the iconic role of Agatha Trunchbull in the new film version of the Tony Award-winning musical. Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical Which is in theaters internationally and starts streaming on Netflix, and when? , Christmas Day.

This season also brought good news for Thompson on another front, as she was nominated for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical at the Golden Globes, and for Best Actress at the AARP Movies for Grown Up Awards for the Sundance hit. . Good luck to you, Leo Grande which debuted on Hulu in June, but has also been given special eligibility to qualify for the Oscars, even though it didn’t play in theaters before streaming.

In a tight race for best actress this year, Thompson, who is also nominated for a Film Critics Circle Award in London this week, is in the conversation for a role that is undoubtedly one of her best. Maggie Gyllenhaal recently hosted a special screening of the film for Academy members in NYC followed by a chat with Thompson.

The film is essentially a two-hander with Thompson playing Nancy, a 60-year-old retired school teacher in a good if slow marriage who hires Leo Grande, a sex worker. Looking for a chance to live her life for some adventure and a little sex. (Darrell McCormack). Shot during the pandemic, it’s actually the perfect vehicle for the situation. Basically it’s two actors in a hotel room. When I spoke to Dame Emma recently, I suggested that it could have been a play. It was written by Katie Brand, and directed by Sophie Hyde. Thompson believes cinema is the right place for this deeply intimate story that says so much about the human condition and the way we see ourselves.

“I know a lot of people say, well, it’s like a play because it’s two people talking, but actually, it wouldn’t work as a play at all, because you have His scenery wouldn’t be accessible. The soul in the same way you do in the film, and the way Sophie Hyde used our faces and our bodies as the landscape so you could really be inside these two people. Wally could feel the seismic changes. That’s why it worked for me, because it could have gone so wrong if it had been treated any other way,” he said on Zoom from New York where Matilda was premiering.

“And I don’t think Katie was even aware of how deep she had gone, and I didn’t know, until we started reading it and practicing it, that Nancy How deep I had gone. This loss, this feeling of not being fully alive, not necessarily because of an orgasm or sex, but something much deeper, with myself. A relationship that was missing, you know, with her own body, and I think that’s true of a lot of women because they’re just not being asked what they want.

Good luck to you, Leo Grande Fiercely independent, but her focus on a woman over 60, her sexual needs, her desire to go places she hasn’t been before, is perhaps the most common of Hollywood studios these days. Not a movie to make noise, yet here it is being made. Released by Searchlight, a Disney-owned company.

“You don’t see it in movies at all. Sometimes you see it in European movies, and in fact, if you take an old Italian director like Vittorio De Sica, and you take his film. Vacation (aka a short vacation)You know, where he takes a normal factory worker, a woman who gets sick and goes to the hospital, and it’s all about her. This is the closest thing I can think of. Of course it’s sad because it’s De Sica, but he, Fellini, he was interested in ordinary women because he’s Italian, and there’s something about Italians who know about women,” he said.

“I said earlier that it’s the person who’s with the person who’s doing the interesting thing, and suddenly the perspective changes and you see this very ordinary woman who’s alive and there’s something sad about her. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. She had a life that people would say is a pillar of society. She has done exactly what we need to keep everything going. A woman who behaves well, hers. Supports her husband, raises her children, and keeps quiet. Great. Big fat tick.”

I pointed out that starting in 2022. Leo Grande At Sundance in January, it’s been a very strong year for female characters in movies and even behind the camera. It’s something Thompson knows a lot about since coming to write one of his two Oscars (sense and sensibility). While the second was for the lead actress in the film. Howard’s conclusion. She knows both sides of business and what it takes to make a difference. She’s not so sure that this marks the beginning of a new era for women in film.

“Who knows? I mean, the industry doesn’t suddenly wake up to something, does it? It’s a very slow, glacial pace that changes happen. I think it’s probably one of those years, and it’s next. The year could easily be. I don’t think there’s been a significant shift in interest, especially among middle-aged women. And it will change, of course it will change, but it’s going to be very slow. We still Creating a lot of hero images, you know. So yeah. I don’t think it’s some kind of sea change and now it’s all going to be fantastic. No, I don’t think so,” he said.

Thompson doesn’t do social media and says she’d probably lose her mind if she had access to strangers’ reactions to the film or any of her films, but she’s traveled the world doing Q&As for the film. Learned a lot by doing. Amused by the reaction. There was an 82-year-old black American man who started talking to his wife about their sex life after watching the film, a gay couple in Melbourne who said it made them feel more confident about their bodies. Feel better, a 23-year-old woman from London who watched the film. movie and soon after that she managed her first orgasm.

“There’s a huge percentage of women who don’t or can’t orgasm, so it’s a really good and interesting discussion, but of course it’s not just about that. It’s about self-acceptance and that ease. It’s not easily achieved in a consumer society. It’s different in other parts of the world. If you’re going to talk about the whole world, you’re going to talk very differently about this film. Talking about the reaction. For example, in Liberia or Myanmar I can imagine what it would be, but they would never show it,” she said.

“It’s absolutely fascinating. It’s been exciting, and I think it’s probably one of the most satisfying and fulfilling things I’ve ever had the opportunity to do, and I think it’s some of the best work I’ve ever done. I’ve done it so far because I don’t think I could have done it 10 years ago. I think it hit me at just the right moment in my life. My age, everything about it just at the right time. It just so happened that I think it hit Daryl at exactly the right moment in his life and his development.

As for the large number of nude scenes that were required, most of the film was shooting the room with daylight, and she said that when she suggested that she, McCormack, and even the director Said to get this strange part out of the way quickly. Hyde must be all naked for rehearsals. She was joking, but Hyde picked up on her. “That morning we spent just talking about our bodies and identifying the bits we liked, the bits we were bothered by, the bits that felt scarred, the scars, internal and external, and It was a very helpful, comforting thing. Do, because after a really short time, you get used to it really quickly. Honestly. It becomes normal very quickly,” he said halfway through rehearsal. Day says that she pulled out of the shoot which was completed in just 19 days.

Before our interview ended, I had to ask him about the incident Actually love. Did he have any idea she would. even now Talk about it almost 20 years later? People all over the world are watching it this week as we speak.

“No. Neither of us did. Neither of us had any idea. I saw Richard Curtis the other day and Diane (Sawyer) was over and she interviewed both of us, you know. , and we were just talking about it and saying, isn’t that the weirdest thing? And I think in some ways it’s not weird, because like It’s a wonderful life.in that everything you do matters,” he said.

“You know, it’s a combination of all kinds of processes that create a tapestry that’s a web that saves people. It’s such a beautiful thing, and Actually loveWhich ultimately says that what I think we treat is not respected, we don’t make it part of our institutions or our government or our civil society, and it should be because love is what keeps us healthy. Keeps , what keeps us going, those connections, those bonds are the most important things we’ll ever have, and that’s what it says. People like to be reminded of that.”