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Emma Thompsonis opening up about being “half alive” after finding out her ex-husband — actor and directorKenneth Branagh— had cheated on her.
The actress, 63, spoke with theNew Yorkerabout discovering her then-husband had an affair withHelena Bonham Carter, after working with her on 1994’sMary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and how she dealt with the aftermath of their divorce.
After their split, Thompson “was half alive,” she told theNew Yorker. “Any sense of being a lovable or worthy person had gone completely,” she noted.
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Explaining to the outlet that she felt like broken dishes, Thompson went on to note that actor Greg Wise — who she has now been with for 27 years, and married to for 19 of those years — “picked up the pieces and put them back together.”
Thompson and Wise now have two children together, Gaia, 22, and Tindyebwa Wise, 34. After meetingTindyebwa when he was just 16in 2003, a Rwandan orphan, and a former child soldier, he soon became a member of their family.
As for her feelings towards Branagh and Bonham Carter now, Thompson confessed to theSunday Timesin 2018 that despite her heartbreak she has no hard feelings towards them. “That is… all blood under the bridge. You can’t hold on to anything like that,” she said. “It’s pointless. I haven’t got the energy for it… Helena and I made our peace years and years ago… she’s a wonderful woman.”
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“Whilst I’ve never really accepted my own body as anything to write home about, and I’ve always thought it was not much, not really at all, attractive, nonetheless, I have lived in it and experienced pleasure in it,” the two-time Academy Award winner said. “I think the more we can accept our bodies — and not love them, you don’t have to love them — but you do have to accept them in order to experience anything inside them.”
She also explained that Nancy is ultimately “someone you can relate to,” as the widower is on a search for pleasure. In a final scene, Thompson faces the mirror, alone and naked, as her character reclaims her body.
“Emma isn’t immune to the culture we are all soaked in which tells us that our bodies will never be enough,” director Sophia Hyde shared. “So doing this moment fully as Nancy, having had some access to the greatness of what her body is capable of, Emma had to really trust in that idea and sink into it. Which she totally did.”
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Fans of Thompson can also see her take on the role of the iconic Miss Trunchbull inRoald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical, which hits theaters on Dec. 9 and arrives on Netflix on Christmas.
In a trailer for the musical, Thompson’s Trunchbull can be seen taunting and torturing students. It comes decades after the book was first published in 1988, and the Danny DeVito movie adaptation arrived in 1996.
An official synopsis of the movie describes it as “an inspirational musical tale of an extraordinary girl who discovers her superpower and summons the remarkable courage, against all odds, to help others change their stories, whilst also taking charge of her own destiny. Standing up for what’s right, she’s met with miraculous results.”
source: people.com
