Emma Thompson Shuts Down Question About Kenneth Branagh Divorce ｜ 60 Minutes Australia

When you get to interview a star like Emma Thompson, there's not too much time for small talk. Still, having met Anthony Hopkins, her co-star in Remains of the Day, I just couldn't resist a little name dropping. You know Hopkins is going to do Silence of the Lambs 2? Is he? He is, he is. Is Thomas Harris going to write it? I'm not too sure, but Hopkins is insisting on the naming rights. Huh. He's going to call it Quiet All Use. We have to appear immediately? Don't you ever tell a joke like that at ten o'clock in the morning ever again. I told you. It was a tough training, Brian, because they were very cutting. God, they used to make you feel so stupid and so small. My sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me. Do not swear and eat it. I will swear by it that you love me, and I will make him eat it that says I love not you. If Emma Thompson is now a queen of the screen, then for a while her king was husband Kenneth Branagh. I was about to protest I loved you. And do it with all my heart. The critics loved the films they made together, and it seemed they were as happy off screen as they were on. Then, last year, the relationship ended. Look, I wouldn't pretend that I was comfortable asking you this question, but in the country you come from, I'd say it's not worth your job, Governor, not to ask. Tell me about your marriage breakup, please. Oh, I wouldn't dream of telling you. I think it's about time we re-educated ourselves about, you know, how deeply impolite it is to ask somebody you have only just met about their personal lives. I mean, I wouldn't dream of asking you, and I don't really understand why you feel that you have the right to ask me. I don't, I know. I mean, I know I don't, but... You say, and rightly, how uncomfortable it makes you feel asking such a question. Of course it makes you feel uncomfortable, it's absolutely ridiculous. So it's time for journalists to turn around to their editors and say, do you know, actually, I don't feel comfortable asking that question. I don't think they'll have any right to ask that question. Well, then, son, I'll find someone who is comfortable asking that question. Yeah, I know. But if everyone said, I'm not going to do it, and on the other side all the actors said, I will not answer that question, we'd soon get rid of it. So let's make a start. Well, OK, I won't ask you that question again. Who is it? Maggie? Maggie, is everything all right? Fill me with your little babies. Oh, my God! It's hard to avoid some personal questions to someone who has so publicly acted out some most private matters. And Thompson's on record as saying she's well aware her biological clock is ticking and that motherhood might soon be not an option. I know, I know. I know. Yes, I mean, according to one of the tabloid newspapers in England, I've been pregnant for about 18 months. By a variety of different fathers, including Michelle Piper. So as my mother said, I spoke to my mother this morning, she said, so when's the elephant due? I'm going to give birth to something with a trunk, you know. Back in the 80s, Emma Thompson had her own programme on BBC television. It was no hit, but it was a showcase for her talents as a dancer and comedian. It was also a launchpad for her friend Kenneth Branagh. I'm looking for a flop. Because, I mean, you're going to have to have one one day. Maybe it was that BBC series, Thompson. Critics panned it to me. Yeah, they did. They just tore me to pieces. And lots of the films that I've made have not been seen by many people. Lots. Al Jarreau. We got by. Yours. Look, you always like that best. You have it. Come on, we've got to do this properly. There was a bit of ESP there in Thompson, wasn't there? What do you mean? Foretelling the future. Why, what? I'm not thinking. You're with Branagh and you're divvying up the records. Oh, yes, right. Thanks for bringing that up. Sorry, I... Sweet of you. Jesus Christ. I'm pregnant. I tested the expectant on myself. I've got seven months to term. She may have a degree in English literature and a distinguished Cambridge background, but Emma Thompson hasn't confined herself to the classics. Junior, with Arnold Schwarzenegger, wasn't great cinema, but it made a mozza at the box office. Junior, with Schwarzenegger. Yeah. On reflection of rubbish. I loved doing that movie. I just loved it. I think that, you know, everybody sort of got a bit po-faced, really, and took it all far too seriously. And I really, really loved it. And certainly not, no. I have no regrets. And I'd always wanted to work with Arnold, cos I find him a completely fascinating personality. He's a mythic creature, Arnold, you know? Amazing, amazing, phenomenal sort of creature. I became completely fascinated with him Do you love him? I do not attempt to deny that I think very highly of him, that I greatly esteem him. Esteem him? Like him? Eleanor's not like him. Thompson wrote the screenplay for her latest movie, Sense and Sensibility, and she's up for Oscars for both her performance and the writing. Good work, Marianne. Shakespeare, Scott, all forms of poetry. It is well written, but then she did have a good start with the original story by Jane Austen, something her co-actors are prone to point out. Did Emma write this? No, she copied it out of a book. Straight out of a book? She copied it out of word for bloody word. Take three, camera. Three, camera. Thompson plays the elder of two sisters battling a society obsessed with financial and social status. Indeed. Yes. Do you know her? She falls in love with the character played by Hugh Grant, but his family keeps them apart. A country living is my idea of a small parish where I might do some good. Keep chickens. She may or may not have the face to launch a thousand ships, but at 36, Emma Thompson is, to say the very least, in pretty good shape. You want to look your age? You said that when you were 34 or something. Yeah. I'm 48 now, and, you know, I feel good with it. I feel happy. How are you going to be at 58? I think that, you know, the whole sort of age business is tremendously tedious and wrong, somehow, the way in which we're all scissored. I mean, look at you. You're probably much better looking now than you were when you were sort of 20. You're getting more and more distinguished, aren't you? I can tell. Well, that's what us ageing people tend to say. I know, but women don't feel that about themselves, and it's a real shame. I don't understand why you would pay a man with a knife to cut you open and put things inside you or take things away. I just don't get it. That's all right for you, because you're beautiful. Well, that's very... Smooth talking. Thank you. Well, you're not going to argue, are you? But, you know... If you had a scar down there... Well, I'd get to play a lot of pirates, wouldn't I? You know, or I'd write or do something else. You never know, I may get scarred. We may get into a fight later. You may be forced to defend yourself. Well, you do scare. You're scared. Well, a little bit. I mean, of course, you do scare me a little, don't you? Well, yes, you know, sometimes. I mean, of course, you're beautiful, and you've got an opinion, haven't you? Yeah, yeah. Opinionated is what people say about women who voice opinions. Assertive is what they say about men. This is another problem. Do you know who this is, Mr Dixon? No, I don't. Well, then, would you be so kind as to read the statement that you took from him on the 3rd of November, 1974? Versatile, talented, intelligent. She's all those things, and something else too. Classy. So far, she's rarely appeared in a movie that isn't something quite out of the ordinary. Emma Thompson is a star, but she's first and foremost an actress. You've got the lifeblood of Carol Richardson, and you've got 15 years of blood and sweat and pain from my client! You haven't totally embraced Hollywood, have you? No, no, I don't live there. I prefer to keep it as a place that I visit, because I really like visiting it, and it keeps it as a sort of strange, rather otherworldly experience. You know, it's extraordinary how people live there. So you don't have a therapist or a reserved room at the Betty Ford Clinic? Oh, yes! It may well happen.