Birthday Star: Emma Thompson

Now I know why I have a fondness for Emma Thompson. We almost share the same birthday. Almost. She turns 55 today. Happy Birthday, Emma! (Weirdly though, I was never really crazy about any of the stars who actually share my birthday)

Born on April 15^th, 1959 in London to actor Eric Thompson and actress Phyllida Law, Emma Thompson grew up to become one of the most respected actress working right now. I’m not going to spend time discussing about her upbringing and all her early works because frankly I am not familiar with that either. That’s the job of Wikipedia, and there’s a long article on that territory you can read.

No, I’m here to write about a few of her works that I like. I first came to know her when she won her Best Adapted Screenplay for Sense and Sensibility in the 68^th Annual Academy Awards. That was one of my earliest memory of the Oscars. She was labelled as multi-talented as she was already a well-known actress who just won Best Actress 3 years before, and nominated in both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress 2 years before. She was again nominated in Best Actress for her role in Sense and Sensibility that year, but lost to Susan Sarandon. She displayed both humor and wit in her speech when she gracefully thanked everyone. I didn’t watch the film until years later, and while I’m not good at judging the quality of a script (let alone an English period piece), I did enjoy the film very much. Bonus point: Many years later I finally watched her winning speech at the Golden Globes that year, and to me that was the most hilarious (in a good way) speech one can ever give in award show. She pretended she was Jane Austen and read out her thank you note in the context of how Jane Austen would have reacted had she attended the award show. Go find it on YouTube.

So the first Emma Thompson movie I watched was actually umm… Love Actually. For her segment of story with Alan Rickman, most of the people will remember Mr. Bean a.k.a. Rowan Atkinson’s cameo appearance. What I remember is Emma Thompson’s crying scene when she found out the gift her husband bought wasn’t for her. Co-incidentally (or maybe not?) she also has an elaborate crying scene in Sense and Sensibility. When she cries, you really feel for her. But yet even in her sadness she still displays a lot of strength. You know she’s not going to be beaten by this whole thing, she will stand up again.

And then there’s Angels in America. This miniseries won a lot of awards when it first came out, and it’s easy to find the DVD in store now. Lots of the attention were (rightly) on the four younger cast whose tangled relationship is actually the center of the plot, but the three veteran Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson won a lot of raves too. Both Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson played multi characters in the miniseries. Emma Thompson played the role of the titular angel, and also the kind nurse that treated Prior Walter, plus one homeless woman. She was nominated in a lot of award shows, but in almost every one of them she lost to Meryl Streep. Nevertheless her contribution to the miniseries is obvious. The scene where she first descent to Prior Walter is probably one of the best scenes in the miniseries.

Of course one cannot write about Emma Thompson without mentioning her Oscar-winning performance Howards End. I admit I never quite understand this movie and I do not think her performance is any special, nor is it award-worthy. After all, her character is quiet and passive, and the more colorful character is her sister played by Helena Bonham Carter (remember when she was the sophisticated English rose?). And while she does have her own storyline with Anthony Hopkins, most of the time she is a supportive sister (in a way, she is also this way in Sense and Sensibility). I did some research online, and found this movie is a metaphorical discussion of “who should inherit England”. Perhaps I don’t have enough cultural understanding to fully appreciate the movie.

And while Emma Thompson spent a lot of time wearing corset in the 90s, she did step out of her comfort zone a lot in recent years. She did a weird movie called Stranger than Fiction, where she is a writer controlling Will Farrell’s life by deciding what happens to him. It is the kind of project you’d mistaken for a Michel Gondry film, as the concept is as creative as Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. Just like Eternal Sunshine gives Kate Winslet a chance to shine in a contemporary role, Stranger than Fiction allows us to see a quirky side of Emma Thompson.

She also did another film with her Stranger than Fiction co-star Dustin Hoffman, Last Chance Harvey. It is a love story for mature audience, and the movie itself is quite simple and follows the two main characters around England over the course of a few days. It’s a movie to showcase the star power of the two leads, and by doing so little Emma Thompson shows us she has got the charisma to make people sit through the whole movie just to see her.

Most recently she was in Saving Mr. Bank, a movie about PL Travers, the author of Mary Poppins. Curiously enough is that Emma Thompson herself had written and starred in two Nanny McPhee movies, which like Mary Poppins is about a magical nanny and the families she helps. In Saving Mr. Bank, she makes a character so stern and boring into someone we can love. She has good chemistry with Tm Hanks, who played Walt Disney. Her snub at the Academy Awards (she was not even nominated, getting squeezed out by Amy Adams whose charm on Academy members is so puzzling they’ll nominate her in anything and everything) is the single most hurtful and shocking thing about the Oscars this year. I hope she’ll get her chance again in the future.

Other Emma Thompson movies I’d watched include the one scene cameo in I Am Legend (miss the first two minutes and you’ll miss her), Men in Black 3 (though the only thing I remember is her imitation of alien language), Beautiful Creatures (over the top performance in an underperformed film), and of course, the Harry Potter films.

Once again, Happy Birthday Emma Thompson. May you get offered more good roles in the future, and give us more wonderful performances and pleasant moments through your witty conversations and speeches.