Emma Thompson says, “I didn’t get famous until I was in my thirties. And I thank the creative gods for that every single day.”

Smart, witty and refreshingly down-to-earth, Emma Thompson is a rare kind of celebrity. In an exclusive interview, she chats to MiNDFOOD about family life, dealing with depression, and her latest role alongside Mindy Kaling.

“I didn’t get famous until I was in my thirties, and I thank the gods for that.”

EMMA THOMPSON

Emma Thompson squeezes past Elton John – with Taron Egerton in tow – in the corridors of London’s Art Deco-inspired Corinthia Hotel. Heading towards her hotel suite, she starts our chat by discussing the merits of the Elton John biopic, Rocketman – set primarily in the ’80s – which she is yet to see. Given that it was an equally formative decade for Thompson, I wonder aloud if a film biography of her own life would resemble Elton’s colourful regimen of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll?

“Oh yeah, totally. Well, actually, that’s really more like this period of my life,” she replies, utterly straightfaced, having just celebrated her 60th birthday. “Oh God almighty – that is just so funny,” she says with a laugh, contemplating her younger self onscreen. “I’ll tell you what that film would be like. There’d be a long bit in the middle where I’m just writing. That wouldn’t be very interesting. You’d have to make something up – like I was once part of, I don’t know, maybe an army?”

THE FORMATIVE YEARS

Ruminating on her life as a 20-something upcoming actress in swinging London, she offers, “I was experimenting with everything in the ’80s – not so much the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll bit, but I did a mime course in Paris, at Lecoq [L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq], so I was, in fact, experimenting with my body. Then I did a solo show in Edinburgh [Fringe Festival], and then I wrote a sketch show. It was really torn apart because it was largely feminist material and it featured things I wanted to write about – which, of course, was not mainstream. I was attacked because it was viewed as man-hating, which it wasn’t.” She sighs. “It was just about other things that the men who were writing had never heard of and just assumed that somehow, they were being got at.”

She glances at the ceiling, listing the markers that defined her youth. “Then I wrote the screenplay, Sense and Sensibility, then I did a musical from ’84 to ’85 on stage for 16 months [Sweeney Todd]. Then I got clinically depressed.”

She delivers that last revelation in the same upbeat manner, before getting more serious. “It was ghastly … very tough. I think people who are comics and performers are often depressive.”

To her credit, she’s always been candid about her bouts of depression, even when she’s suffered humiliation – notably in 1995, when she and thenhusband Kenneth Branagh separated after six years of marriage following his affair with Helena Bonham Carter. She and Branagh were a real power couple in London at the time, so the messy love triangle was huge news.

“When Ken and I split up and everyone turned up outside my house, that was something,” she shakes her head. “Yeah, that was not nice because it’s very intrusive and difficult. But again, you learn a lot because you think, ‘What’s it like for the people who aren’t used to the press at all? What’s it like for ordinary members of the public when the press come down on them in that way?’ That must be really terrible, like being kind of abused in some dreadful way.”

Returning to the subject of the ’80s, she reveals the resounding and indeed climactic finale to that decade. “I did my first movie, The Tall Guy, with Jeff Goldblum, and spent two days naked with him. That was the sex bit for the whole of the ’80s.”

She leans forward. “That’s quite a lot, isn’t it? It’s more than a lot of people managed over that decade, I’m sure.” She chuckles. “I was very lucky because I was in my twenties and I did so many things I was allowed to fail at because I wasn’t famous. Thank God I wasn’t famous. I didn’t get famous until I was in my thirties. And I thank the creative gods for that every single day.”

Thompson is undeniably one of the sharpest, wittiest and most entertaining celebrities out there, and she makes most of the rest of them seem extremely dull by comparison. She is perfectly cast in the new satirical comedy, Late Night, as Katherine Newbury – longtime interviewer and ornery host of a late-night TV show. Her co-star, Mindy Kaling also wrote the screenplay, creating the role of Newbury with Thompson in mind. Kaling, meanwhile, is the wide-eyed novice Molly Patel, the sole female in the writers’ room, who tries to rescue the show as its ratings nosedive, amid a set rife with frat-boy antics including disdain for women and minorities. It seems these young men of privilege have nothing to fear – except for the abrasive Katherine Newbury.

A CLASS ACT

“It was absolute bliss playing someone who is so rude, because I’m pathologically polite. So that was very good fun,” Thompson says, laughing. “And also, telling young white men to shut up was hugely relaxing. But of course [the film’s premise] is slightly science fiction because there’s never been a female talk-show host, so there was no-one to actually base it on in that sense. So I watched [original host of The Tonight Show] Johnny Carson and early [David] Letterman, because I thought Katherine had his intellectual snobbery, but also this very, very high standard. Plus, his staff were terrified of him, so that was quite a good key.

“I’ve appeared on a lot of those shows, from Carson onwards, and Letterman many times, so I found it quite accessible.”

Though Thompson is widely acclaimed as a dramatic actress and writer, she insists her career really began in comedy. “I did stand-up when I was 23 and worked in sketch comedy until I was 27 before I started to act,” she says.

“I was in those comedy clubs where women found it very, very difficult to engage with a room that was largely masculine – and often a bit contemptuous. You needed to develop quite a thick skin. And I can remember doing my own shows in Edinburgh and on television, and the shit that got thrown at me when I was young, you cannot imagine.”

Despite a constant barrage of negativity coming her way, she was resolute in believing herself to be both talented and funny, simply refusing to acknowledge any alternative. “I knew that I was funny, having been told I wasn’t many times. I just realised, ‘Oh, actually they’re wrong. It’s just because they’re not used to seeing people like me being funny.’”

Armed with this tunnel-vision focus and old-fashioned perseverance, she pushed on through the adversity. Presumably she had no choice but to become a fighter? “Massively. Yeah, massively,” she nods.

LIFE IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Performing stand-up has often been considered therapeutic. Would she agree? “Oh, that’s a nice idea but I don’t think it’s true. All the stand-ups I know certainly require therapy, and that’s not funny, at all. I did very little stand-up and I always did it for political causes. It was terrifying. I’ve got a poster on my wall from 1984, of me, French and Saunders, and Ben Elton. It was a benefit for the miners’ strike. And I remember doing stand-up at Nelson’s Column in front of 64,000 people in ’84 when Reagan came over – [at] the Reagan Out rally. I died the most dreadful death that any stand-up has ever done in front of all these people. They didn’t want to hear my gags – even though they were funny, about herpes and Margaret Thatcher.”

Evidently, depression in some form or another has been ever-present in her life. She confirms she can trace the trauma back to her childhood – when her father “got very ill”.

“He had his first heart attack when he was 37 and he died when he was 52,” she says. “So that trauma continued through, although there were patches where it was okay. When he died, I was 21, and it was a terrible shock. It influenced everything. Now I’m eight years older than he was when he died.”

An unabashed over-achiever, Thompson remains the only woman to have received Academy Awards for both acting and screenwriting. She won Best Actress in 1993 for Howards End, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Sense and Sensibility in 1996. She has also amassed multiple BAFTAs and Golden Globes, and was made a Dame in November last year.

When she arrived at Buckingham Palace to collect her DBE – which she calls a “badge” – she famously broke the dress code, wearing a pair of white sneakers. Of course, as befitted the occasion, they weren’t just any old sneakers. “They were my really posh sneakers, not casual, and made by Stella McCartney and cost the most money,” she says, feigning indignity.

But did she actually read the fallout in the press?

“I don’t look at the press, why would I do that to myself? I was very happy with my family on the day. And I don’t look at photos, I don’t look at comments, I would never do that and I don’t know why anyone would,” she says. Laughing, she adds, “Actually, it was my mum [actress Phyllida Law – who was awarded the slightly lower honour of an OBE in 2014] who said, ‘I don’t quite understand the sneakers.’ I said, ‘Well, I went to Stella McCartney, who as you know is a very famous and excellent designer, and who designed the suit for me, and she said that the sneakers will look really good and you’ll be comfortable.’ I said, ‘Yes, you’re right.’ So I wore them.” She adds, casually, “And crucially, Prince William seemed not to mind at all.”

KEEPING THINGS REAL

Though she has now enjoyed a 30-year-plus career in the public eye, not all of Thompson’s celebrity experiences have been smooth sailing.

“I’ve taught myself to be careful with irony – because you’re not necessarily going to be understood. But you must stay authentic and be truthful, otherwise you’ll get into trouble because you won’t know what you said 20 years ago. It saves you from awkwardness, but it also throws you right into the thick of it sometimes because you’re being honest.

“I reckon that anyone who gets famous should absolutely go into therapy immediately. Absolutely. Because don’t forget the projections and don’t forget what happens to the people around you – especially your family. That’s why I said earlier, ‘Thank God I didn’t get famous until I was in my thirties,’ because it wasn’t going to knock me sideways. But you think of the kids now who get famous, like everyone in Game of Thrones who all started 10 years ago, that’s really hard.”

Thompson lives in London (on the same street where she grew up) with her husband of 16 years, Greg Wise (an actor and producer) – whom she met on the set of Sense and Sensibility. The pair’s daughter, Gaia, 20, is an actress and a Greenpeace activist, following in her mother’s socially conscious footsteps. Thompson and Wise later informally adopted a Rwandan orphan and former child soldier, Tindyebwa Agaba, now 32, who works as a human rights lawyer.

How is life with a young woman in the house?

“It’s really an interesting road, actually. I will be looking at my girl and thinking, ‘Oh, there’s my little girl’ – and then she will suddenly talk to me about her tutor’s PhD on the role of the patriarchy and the suppression of the female orgasm.” Her eyes widen. “I will go, ‘Bloody hell! That’s interesting’.”

Though she has lived a wellrounded life, Thompson likes to ponder the challenges facing us all, rich or poor, famous or not. “I sometimes wonder whether we ask too much of ourselves. We’ve somehow got to have lots of relationships with loads of friends, and we’ve got to have good relationships with our families. We live longer so it’s not only old folks but also our young folks, then we’ve got to be able to hold down a job as well and have relationships with the people in the job. A great deal is asked of us in this modern world.”

So, what does she do in the moments where nothing is asked of her? “I take a nap,” she says, looking confused – as though there could be no other answer.

While her adult life has been one of privilege and success, Thompson is a famously low-maintenance star – though she insists she’s not always a delight. “I’m sure I’ve been spoiled and demanding at times. I try not to be. I do a lot for my family. I do most of the cooking, I do most of the shopping and it’s not like I don’t know the price of milk,” she laughs.

“It’s not like I don’t clean my own toilets from time to time. So I have tried to keep it real.” She pauses. “And look, if I am spoiled, well, there’s not much I can do about it now.”

“I reckon that anyone who gets famous should absolutely go into therapy immediately.”

EMMA THOMPSON