10 YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT THINGS
ACCLAIMED actress Emma Thompson puts in a scenerychewing performance as horrible headmistress Miss Trunchbull in the newly released Matilda the Musical.
But she gripes her kid co-stars weren’t intimidated! “They thought I was Nanny McF**king McPhee,” she says, referring to the magical sitter she played in Nanny McPhee and the sequel Nanny McPhee Returns. “I was supposed to terrify them!” Still, Emma, 63, admits it was “absolutely bliss” to play a character like Trunchbull “because you can indulge in your inner demons and let them out to play.” Here are ten things you don’t know about the London native.
1 She was a self-professed punk rocker in the ’70s.
2 While attending Cambridge University, she joined a sketch comedy troupe and performed alongside future stars Stephen Fry, Tony Slattery and Hugh Laurie.
3 She and Laurie dated during their college days, but the House doctor jokes, “She dumped me for a mime.”
4 Her first on-screen kiss was with Jeff Goldblum in 1989’s The Tall Guy.
5 Not all of Emma’s Academy Awards are for performing. She won the Best Actress trophy in 1993 for Howards End, and her second Oscar came three years later for writing the Best Adapted Screenplay for Sense and Sensibility.
6 Her marriage to Kenneth Branagh hit the rocks in the ’90s because of his fling with Helena Bonham Carter.
7 She and hubby Greg Wise, who tied the knot in 2003, became honorary citizens of Venice, Italy, two years ago.
8 Her favorite films include Young Frankenstein and Blade Runner.
9 She’d rather have “root canal treatment for a year” than be on social media.
10 She believes impatience is her worst quality.