Thompson revives her rom-com roots
George Michael’s music helped inspire touching story told in Last Christmas
Emma Thompson is no stranger to the British holiday rom-com, having played a key role in the now-classic, London-based 2003 Christmas movie Love Actually.
These days, Thompson is part of a new love letter to London at Christmastime, based on the music of late pop star George Michael.
But the Oscar-winning actress wasn’t particularly fond of the Wham! song Last Christmas when she and husband Greg Wise started envisioning the narrative that would turn into the Last Christmas screenplay by Thompson and Bryony Kimmings.
“Last Christmas is not my favourite song,” the writer and actress told Entertainment Weekly.
“I just thought of an idea to do with the lyric of Last Christmas that inspired me, and then I thought, ‘Oh, actually, so much of George’s other music really works with this idea.’”
The singer-songwriter and former Wham! member died of natural causes on Christmas Day 2016, but the songs he left behind have been given new life in the Paul Feig-directed film that follows the classic formula of a cynic gaining new perspective at Christmas.
The floundering Kate, played by Emilia Clarke, is working as a Christmas store elf when she meets Tom, played by Henry Golding, who helps shift her world view just in time for the holidays.
Thompson says Michael gave his blessing for the movie to be made, and the two met several times while Thompson worked on the script.
“He was just the loveliest guy you could imagine,” Thompson said in an interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon late last month. “All of these themes in the movie, he was passionate about.”
The film deals with issues including trauma, poverty and the plight of refugees.
In the movie, Kate’s family fled the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Thompson herself plays Kate’s mother.
Thompson also points out how strongly Michael felt about the homeless.
“This growth of homelessness in all our major cities, he found that very, very terrible,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “It affected him a lot, and he was extremely active in trying to do something about that.”
The film, incorporates 15 of Michael’s songs, including This Is How (We Want You To Get High), recently released posthumously.
“We lost him, and I miss him so much,” Thompson told Fallon. “I wish he (were) here, because I know he’d love it.”