Emma Thompson

Emma Thompson

Dame Emma Thompson DBE is a British actress, screenwriter, activist, author and comedian. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, three BAFTA Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. Thompson is married to actor Greg Wise, with whom she lives in London.

About Emma Thompson in brief

Summary Emma ThompsonDame Emma Thompson DBE is a British actress, screenwriter, activist, author and comedian. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, three BAFTA Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. Born in London to English actor Eric Thompson and Scottish actress Phyllida Law, Thompson was educated at Newnham College, University of Cambridge. Thompson is married to actor Greg Wise, with whom she lives in London. She has one daughter and an adopted son. Thompson has written two books adapted from The Tale of Peter Rabbit, and is an activist in the areas of human rights and environmentalism. She was awarded the OBE for services to drama in 2011. She also received a CBE in the 2013 Queen’s Birthday Honours list. Thompson was a member of the Footlights comedy troupe at Cambridge, and was invited into the troupe by its president, Martin Bergman. She became a self-professed punk rocker with short red hair and a motorbike. In the early 1990s, she often collaborated with her husband, actor and director Kenneth Branagh, and co-starred in several films, including Dead Again and Much Ado About Nothing. Thompson scripted and starred in Sense and Sensibility, which earned her numerous awards, including an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2013, she received acclaim and several award nominations for her portrayal of author P.  L. Travers in Saving Mr. Banks. Other notable film and television credits include the Harry Potter film series, Wit, Love Actually, Angels in America, Nanny McPhee, Stranger than Fiction, Last Chance Harvey, Men in Black 3 and the spin-off Men In Black: International, Brave, Beauty and the Beast, Late Night and the BBCHBO series Years and Years.

Thompson served as the Vice President of Footlights, the university’s all-female revue, in 1980. The following year, Thompson and her team won the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for their sketch show The Cellar Perrier. She had a romantic relationship with fellow actors Stephen Fry and Laurie Fry, and she had a relationship with the latter for a few years. Thompson believes that it was inevitable that she would become an actress, commenting that she was surrounded by creative people and I don’t think it would ever have gone any other way, really. She believes that she is the only person to receive Academy Awards for acting and writing and a second BAFTA Award for best actress. She spent much time in Scotland during her childhood and often visited Ardentinny, where her grandparents and uncle lived. Thompson’s godfather was the director and writer Ronald Eyre. The family lived in West Hampstead in north London, and Thompson has one sister, Sophie Thompson, who also works as an actress. Her mother is the Scottish actressPhyllida law, while her English father, Eric Thompson, was involved in theatre, was the writer–narrator of the popular children’s television series The Magic Roundabout.