- 10 months ago
On October 26, 2025, the actor and writer Emma Thompson joined the staff writer Helen Shaw for a discussion at the 26th annual New Yorker Festival.
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00:00Well, well, well. A customer.
00:12Or have you taken a wrong turn en route to the artisanal cheese shop?
00:16Door's open. I'm looking for Joseph Silverman.
00:23Let me guess. You've got a husband, he's got a secretary. Am I warm?
00:27No. The secretary's still a thing.
00:30Okay, but not secretary. Personal assistant. Posh secretary.
00:34You seem like the type who might have a handsy husband in the media.
00:37What type is that? Sort of, you know, doe-eyed and helpless.
00:42You seem like a bit of a co-
00:48I feel seen.
00:50Hi, I'm Zoe Bowen.
00:54Sarah Trafford.
01:24Thank you so much.
01:27Now shut up, shut up.
01:30I mean that in a very caring way.
01:33What a gorgeous place.
01:35Okay.
01:37Are you ready, Helen?
01:39I'm so ready because I have a script.
01:42Hi, everyone.
01:45I'm Helen Shaw. I'm not actually going to do the whole script.
01:49I'm going to hit the highlights.
01:51I'm Helen Shaw.
01:53Hello.
01:54Hello.
01:55I'm so happy to welcome you to the 26th Annual New Yorker Festival.
02:01And we are joined, obviously, by Emma Thompson.
02:06How do you remember all those words, Helen?
02:15Oh, this was our question backstage.
02:19So, when we did our sort of, hello, how are you, Zoom, about a week ago, I said, I have
02:28two ideas for us to construct this conversation around.
02:32One is comedy, and the other is politics.
02:35And Emma said, they're the same thing.
02:38And so I would actually like to ask a little bit to take us back to the beginning of both
02:49of those things in your life, and when those two things were starting to come together for you.
02:55So, the first question is, what is the first time you made anybody laugh?
03:01Oh, that's such a good question.
03:04I was 13, and it was a very, it's very bizarre, actually, because I don't think I've ever really
03:13gone back to this bit before, and it's funny that we're doing it here, because I used to
03:18go to a little drama club when I was, you know, I mean, from the age of about nine, and it was
03:25Sheila Sachs' drama club, and it was in her front room, just round, so we'd walk up there
03:30and do these little, do stuff, and there would be an end-of-year show every year.
03:35And when I was 13, her friend, who was a jazz musician called George Melly, very good trumpeter,
03:43had written a sketch called The Hampstead Hostess, and this sketch had been inspired by Lenny
03:50Bruce's sketch, How to Relax Your Coloured Friends at Parties.
03:56So that's where it all began, with Lenny Bruce, and this sketch was about a woman, sort of
04:05really, actually I was in something a bit flowy, like this, tiny bit caftan-ish, you know,
04:11not wise, and it was about this woman who was just thrilled because she had a black person
04:18at her party.
04:19That was the gag, I mean, can you believe it?
04:22So this is going back some, this is 53 years ago.
04:26A half a century ago, these people were writing about racism in the sort of posh, middle-class
04:34community, and that's the first time that I actually made an audience laugh in the theatre,
04:41and that I thought, this is the power that I want to have for the rest of my life, this
04:46is the only thing I want to do. This is so good. This feeling, oh my God, I have power.
04:54They are laughing. And the thing is, it occurred to me the other day, when we laugh together,
05:00we really communicate with each other, we connect in a kind of mycelium-y way, you know,
05:06but we don't cry together in the same way. We don't. We will sometimes sit kind of quietly
05:11in the cinema, or not, if you're watching Titanic with teenagers, you know.
05:18You know, shut up.
05:20But when people are sort of going, you should do that kind of .
05:25But we don't do that when we're laughing. When we're laughing, our laughter encourages others to laugh,
05:30and it was the most extraordinary feeling. And that's when I thought, okay, that's what I want to do.
05:38I want to be a comedian. But, as you know, it kind of went in a different direction.
05:45But for all sorts of very good and interesting reasons, politics being part of it,
05:51and sexism being part of it, because being a funny and female at the time was not easy.
05:59You know, these guys that I grew up with were not easy when it came to all of that.
06:05And a lot of them were just going, oh, you know, I really want to fuck you, but you're funny, too.
06:10I don't know what to do with my penis now, you know.
06:14You know, I've just had a really good laugh. I've lost my erection.
06:18You know, there was just this kind of really difficult thing.
06:23And a lot of my comedy actually was about male genital hygiene.
06:27Yeah. Yeah.
06:29Yeah. Because at the time, well, herpes was big.
06:33It was really big, you know. So a lot of my material was about herpes and Margaret Thatcher.
06:40Both equally difficult to get rid of.
06:46And then there was stuff about thrush, you know, candida and yoghurt and tampons.
06:55And it was hard. It was quite hard for people.
06:57And then I would go into the audience and I would look at men and I'd go, do you clean it?
07:02No, but I mean, really do you clean it?
07:04Like, do you really get in there with a cotton bud?
07:07And that would happen. They would go, oh, and then there would be a lot of this.
07:11There would be a lot of, you know, and there would be a lot of just that.
07:16And then, and women just going, yeah, yeah, yeah. Could you? Could you?
07:22So those were part, part, part of the beginnings, part of the beginnings, yes.
07:28And it was all very political, actually.
07:31So when you are at university, you are also doing sketch comedy.
07:38And I assume that sketch also becomes quite naturally political, simply because it's social observation.
07:47So at university, I discovered two things.
07:52One was that being gay was not universally acceptable, which was odd to me because I'd grown up in the theatre.
08:00My parents were both theatre actors and so we were surrounded by gay people.
08:05So it seemed normal to me.
08:06So at the age of 19 to arrive as it were in the outside world proper and think, oh, hang on a minute.
08:12What, what? I had the converse experience, if you know what I mean.
08:16And that was very shocking to me.
08:19And then I discovered feminist literary criticism and realised that I had really literally been reading men writing about women the entire time.
08:27And why was that?
08:28And that changed me very, at a very sort of visceral level.
08:32So that all the sketch comedy I started to write after that was about sort of patriarchal oppression in a way.
08:39I know it sounds hilarious.
08:42But I all, you know, the sketches that I wrote were about things like domestic violence, which is on the up and up now.
08:51It was about Dois de Seigneur.
08:53So that's Epstein.
08:55That's Harvey Weinstein.
08:56It's the, it's these, you know, entitled men who think that, yeah, I'll just have that one, that one, that one, and that one.
09:02That's ancient history.
09:03I mean, that's, that's the Lord in the manor just saying I'll have, you know, and going further afield and further afield as everybody finds out what they're up to.
09:11So it was about fat, the feminism of fat, you know, why, and now that's on the up and up now with all the weight loss drugs and the injections and everything.
09:23So it was all very pointed, I suppose.
09:27And that was hard for people.
09:30Yeah.
09:31I didn't quite, couldn't quite know how to reach it.
09:36Yes.
09:37So I, when I was asking if we could talk about comedy, I said in a way that I thought was very, I was patting myself on the back and I thought, oh, Helen, you've really phrased it.
09:49And I said, I'd like to talk about how comedy leads us in your performance to moments of depth.
09:56And we then had a 20 minute conversation and right at the end, Emma said, death, you want to talk about death?
10:03And I realized that I hadn't really pronounced that P that really important P in depth.
10:09And so with that in mind, I want us to watch one of my touchstone moments in your film Korea.
10:22One of the things I was supposed to tell you about, in fact, at the beginning, because the iPad told me to do it and then I just didn't do it, is that Emma Thompson has won Academy Awards.
10:33But I just, I really think the people in the room based on the volume of applause knew that.
10:38And so, but this is obviously, this is sense and sensibility is not only one of the great roles, but also one of the great scripts.
10:51And so this is what I meant when I said only a great comic technician could lead to a moment of depth.
11:00So can we see the clip?
11:03In view of the change in my circumstances, I felt it only right that she'd be released from our engagement.
11:12At any rate, they were married last week and are now in Plymouth.
11:19Then you...
11:24Are not married?
11:29No.
11:31No.
11:33No.
11:34No.
11:37No.
11:42No.
11:46No.
11:49Eleanor.
12:03Eleanor, I met Lucy when I was very young.
12:07Had I had an active profession, I should never have felt such an idol, a foolish inclination.
12:15My behavior at Norland was very wrong, but I convinced myself that you felt any friendship for me,
12:22and that it was my heart alone that I was risking.
12:26I've come here with no expectations, only to profess, now that I am at liberty to do so,
12:34that my heart is, and always will be, yours.
12:50To quote.
12:51So funny.
12:52No.
12:53Fucking hell.
12:54It made me cry.
12:55It made me cry.
12:56Well, it's just, you know, it's history, isn't it?
13:11And it's kind of, but the funniest thing about that scene was that Edward's speech,
13:17because I wrote Edward for Hugh before he did Four Weddings and I'm more famous than God now.
13:24And I loved that speech.
13:27It didn't change for the years I wrote the thing.
13:29It always stayed the same.
13:31And we started to rehearse it and Hugh said to Ang Lee, the director,
13:38is she going to do it like that?
13:43I said, what do you mean?
13:44Are you going to cry all the way through my speech?
13:47And I said, yeah.
13:49And he said, but you can't do that.
13:51I said, but it's funny.
13:53I'm going to do it.
13:54It's funny.
13:55That's the gag.
13:57And it's one of those examples of something working so much better because it's funny.
14:03And you're laughing.
14:04But at the same time, instead of, you know, those shallow laughs that you can have sometimes
14:09because there's a lot of shallow humor, but then there's humor that goes ever so deep.
14:15And, you know, you find yourself crying and laughing at the same time.
14:18And that's my favorite kind.
14:19You're a very sympathetic audience, may I say.
14:22Yeah, no, we brought them down.
14:23Nicely warm for a Sunday morning.
14:24Yeah.
14:25Have you all been at the booth?
14:26They're crying too.
14:27I did think that maybe an alternative title for the talk should be Emma Gently Explains Comedy
14:40to Men.
14:41But we didn't go that way.
14:45But one of the things, is it all right if I introduce the monologue, is we have a chance
14:54to see sort of how she does it in person.
14:59So do you want to introduce what you have with you?
15:01Well, I was thinking, because Helen wanted to talk about politics and comedy, so I thought
15:06I'd look out one of my old monologues that I wrote when I was in my 20s.
15:13And it came from, it's interesting actually, and we see what you think, it might go down
15:18like a cup of cold sick.
15:19Who knows?
15:20But it's called I Know the Feeling.
15:22And it was inspired again by the Lenny Bruce, George Melly thing.
15:26It's the same thing.
15:27It's a person reacting to something.
15:30And I wrote it at a time when hundreds of thousands of refugees from Vietnam were leaving Vietnam
15:37after the war ended in 75.
15:40And a lot of them arrived in the UK.
15:45And they were called the boat people, Vietnamese boat people.
15:48I don't know if you remember, but it was a massive exodus of a particular section of Vietnamese society.
15:55And so it's sort of about refugees, and that's such a huge issue in our lives here and in the UK at the moment,
16:08that I thought it might be kind of interesting to see if it still worked with a modern audience.
16:13Because I wrote it about 50 years ago.
16:16Anyway, here it is.
16:17So I'm a, if you can picture, I should be in a kind of, do you know who I mean by Laura Ashley?
16:27Somehow that makes me feel kind of sad.
16:30So I'm in one of those floral frocks, you know.
16:35And I'm in an art gallery, and the pictures are all here.
16:40That's all you need to know, really.
16:54Hello.
17:00It's warm for once.
17:02Balmy.
17:03I don't often get balmy nights in England.
17:06You probably get a few where you come from, probably, don't you?
17:09Balmy.
17:10Warm.
17:12I like that one.
17:14In the silver frame.
17:16Nice sort of blue effect.
17:20Isn't it?
17:21I'm Toby sorry, I don't know your name.
17:24Ho Piet Minh.
17:27Oh, it's Vietnamese.
17:29Oh, hello.
17:30How exciting.
17:31Hello.
17:32I'm Marjorie.
17:33How do you do?
17:38Are you a boat person?
17:41Oh.
17:42Well, I've been hearing a lot about you.
17:45Yes.
17:46Well.
17:48Well done.
17:50How was the journey?
17:51Oh, yes.
17:52Mmm.
17:57I know the feeling.
17:58Yes.
17:59Oh, I can imagine.
18:00No, I crewed on a yacht once off the city isles.
18:03And I got, oh, it was hell, honestly.
18:06Sick as a dog.
18:07But well done.
18:08You're here.
18:09Big, full marks.
18:13Did you see the documentary the other day about Vietnam?
18:16Oh, no, no, nor did I.
18:17No, but I hear it was awfully good.
18:20Belinda?
18:22This is, um, Ho.
18:25Oh, sorry, Min.
18:27Oh, it's the other way around.
18:28Oh, I see.
18:29Oh, this is Min.
18:31He's from...
18:33Oh, hasn't he got a lovely smile?
18:36Yes, thanks.
18:37I'd love another one.
18:38How do you find London?
18:39Do you like the food here?
18:41What do you eat?
18:44Big beans.
18:45Oh, well, that's very traditional.
18:47What's, like, food-wise, where you are from?
18:51Ah.
18:53Mmm.
18:55No, I know.
18:56It was awful going hungry, isn't it?
18:57I know.
18:58I can remember from when I had glandular fever.
19:00It's just...
19:02I'm so sorry.
19:03Your English is awfully good.
19:05It's a lot better than my Vietnamese.
19:07I don't teach it at school.
19:08It's pretty embarrassing, really,
19:09but I don't suppose many people speak Vietnamese, really,
19:11on average.
19:14Would you say something?
19:17In Vietnamese?
19:19Oh, I don't know.
19:20Just what a lovely day or something.
19:23Oh, it's lovely.
19:26Sounds just like Chinese.
19:28No, I don't speak Chinese, either, I'm afraid.
19:30Just, you know,
19:32au level French, comment ça va,
19:34all that sort of thing.
19:35Do you have any children?
19:39Eight.
19:41Gosh, that's an awful lot.
19:43That's a handful.
19:44Are they all with you?
19:48Oh, yes.
19:49Well, it's awful when you have to leave them behind, isn't it?
19:51I remember from when we went to the Maldives.
19:53All their little faces pressed up against the windows.
19:55They thought we were never going to come back.
19:57Silly fillies.
19:58Oh.
20:01Do you have a job?
20:04Do you do work?
20:09What?
20:12These?
20:15You painted them?
20:17Oh.
20:18Oh.
20:19Oh, how terribly embarrassing.
20:21I'm so sorry.
20:22I...
20:23I didn't realise that you were...
20:24I didn't realise that you were...
20:29Oh.
20:33Oh.
20:38So, you see...
20:42Poor Marjorie.
20:44Poor Marjorie.
20:45She just wanted to say, I know how you feel.
20:49But she was completely incapable of not trying to empathise.
20:54You know?
20:56That kind of kind...
20:57She's a kind woman.
20:58She just doesn't know what she's talking about.
21:00And she can't imagine.
21:02She can't imagine.
21:03And she's just desperately trying to...
21:05And then she realises that this person is a person of status.
21:10Because she's in an art gallery where he's done all the paintings.
21:14And, of course, it's a...
21:16She can't cope with where she's come from.
21:19Which is deeply patronising.
21:22And unable to sort of manage a conversation.
21:26To then having to go, oh, my God.
21:28He painted the bloody paintings that I've been looking at.
21:31And that everyone's looking at and is so admiring of.
21:33Because he's probably a very famous Vietnamese artist.
21:36You know?
21:37That was written in, I don't know, 1980 or something.
21:42So, like, a long, long time ago.
21:44And I think it's...
21:45Well, I don't know.
21:46It's still sort of telling, isn't it?
21:49There's a tell there.
21:50We still do that.
21:51We still try to...
21:53We try to...
21:55Trying to empathise when you know you really, really can't.
21:58You can't.
22:00Because one of the things that's impossible to describe
22:02is why someone is good at comedy.
22:04Or what is actually happening when someone is being funny.
22:08And the thing I like about that piece,
22:11and the sense and sensibility,
22:13is that what's happening internally with the character
22:17is totally different from what the external reality is.
22:20So what she's presenting, Marjorie is presenting,
22:23is condescension.
22:24And what's happening internally is love.
22:28And here it's joy,
22:30but outside it's just this explosion of all the emotions
22:33she's repressed for the entire relationship.
22:37So I have a very sophisticated set of notes on comedy.
22:41And those notes say face, body, and voice.
22:48So it's been years.
22:50I've been a theatre critic for 20 years.
22:53So we wanted to go back to this early work
22:58because this is when comedy gets braided together with politics for you.
23:03And you mentioned that you were performing in support of various things.
23:08What were you doing at that time?
23:10Well, CND, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
23:15That was a big one.
23:17I did quite a lot of gigs for them.
23:19And now Catherine Bigelow's just made a film that, you know,
23:24is exactly what E.P. Thompson was writing about.
23:27So, and Daniel Ellsberg, of course.
23:30There's going to be a documentary about him
23:32and his vision of this extraordinary world we've created.
23:36So I did something really unwise,
23:39which was I did stand-up comedy at the CND, but March.
23:44It was a, you know, what's it called?
23:49Manifestations, they say in French.
23:51What is that word? I can't remember it.
23:53Rally. Yeah, it was a CND rally.
23:5564,000 people in Trafalgar Square.
23:57What no one had told me was,
23:59do not do comedy at a political rally, ever.
24:02Just ever.
24:04Because a lot of people there are feeling very angry.
24:07And they will tell you about it.
24:10And they will take things personally.
24:11And it was just, I was on Nelson's column.
24:15Not at the top.
24:17On the plinth thing with the lions.
24:20And doing comedy.
24:23The stuff that I've been telling you about,
24:26which did not go down well.
24:28And yet, there was something about that era.
24:33There were an awful lot of huge demonstrations.
24:36Not only about CND.
24:38At the time, we were still allowed to demonstrate.
24:40Now we have police powers in our country that's beginning to prevent that from happening,
24:44which is extremely dangerous in a democracy.
24:46We do not want that.
24:48But a lot of the other gigs that I used to do, partly because it was the only gigs I could get,
24:52and they were free, of course. I was free.
24:53I didn't cost anything.
24:56Yeah.
24:58I did cost a little bit on my 25th birthday.
25:01My 25th birthday, I did 40 minutes of stand-up comedy at Croydon Warehouse.
25:08You don't want to know.
25:10And I got 60 quid in my hand for that.
25:13And it was fantastic because it was just the words that I had written, the microphone, and the people.
25:21And that earned me money.
25:22It was like it had just fallen down from the sky.
25:25It was extraordinary.
25:27And then I did gigs for...
25:30There were an awful lot of solidarity campaigns with the countries in South America
25:35that were under the thumb of dictatorships.
25:37So there were a lot of Chilean and Argentinian refugees.
25:40And what I learned from them was also never put on a black hat and say a sad poem about torture.
25:48Because that's just no fun for anyone.
25:51But sometimes, you know, that's what you're asked to do.
25:54Comedy, you have to really make sure that it's the right kind of thing.
25:58Because there's a lot of people there who, one skin less, they're just so sensitive.
26:02But also, I learned to be not afraid.
26:05Because there were so many performers from those countries who just came.
26:10And because they were...
26:12They had this extraordinary political purpose.
26:16Yeah.
26:17And I think that it's the thing that allowed Nelson Mandela and so many people...
26:23They survive in long periods of solitary confinement because they have this purpose right deep within them.
26:29And these people who came to do these benefit concerts just had this joyful political purpose.
26:37And it was something that I wanted to have for myself.
26:42And that I tried to grow and expand in myself.
26:47That purpose which was deeper than just performing, you know, that had something that went past and into something else.
26:58And this is in the 80s.
27:03You also have an opportunity to kind of take that comedy wide with your television show.
27:09Mm-hmm.
27:10And there's a real danger to that.
27:14But I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about that because I want to set up a clip in a minute.
27:19So could you tell us a little bit about this project?
27:21The thing was that I had done a comedy show, you know, a single person comedy show in Edinburgh, the Edinburgh Festival.
27:32And that was in 1981.
27:35And after that, I did a sketch series with Robbie Coltrane and Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie and, you know, the boys.
27:45And they're lovely, they're fine.
27:48Actually, one of them is dead.
27:50But, you know, that's also...
27:52That's fine, too, because it was great and amazing.
27:55And then we...
27:57Then I went on and I did acting.
27:59And I got...
28:01I was good at it, apparently.
28:04And then I got a couple of awards for acting.
28:07And then I went back and did the comedy show.
28:09So there was this assumption in my extremely punitive country, you know that, you know that.
28:15That I had suddenly thought, well, I can act and I'm going to do comedy as well.
28:20Because I can do that as well.
28:22And that was not the case.
28:24I had come from comedy.
28:26But nobody knew that because it was all sort of hidden and tiny little gigs in literally in people's front rooms in Tufnel Park with people sitting on packing cases.
28:34I mean, I'm not even kidding, apart from the CND one, but that was a disaster.
28:39So, yeah, it was something that I then wrote for a year.
28:47We made, I think, a couple of big mistakes.
28:50We didn't do it in front of an audience.
28:52I didn't want a laugh track because I...
28:54And I now know that that was a mistake.
28:56We should have done it in front of an audience.
28:58And I might just have been scared, but I also just wanted to make...
29:03Maybe I wanted to make drama as well, because all of it, all of these sketches were little dramas.
29:09I mean, and they were all based on things that had come in.
29:13One of the sketches which I love is about a witchfinder general coming in from work at the end of a very long day.
29:18And, you know, being made tea and talking about all the witches he's burned.
29:22And then my mother coming in through the window on a broomstick.
29:31And then them having a long conversation about, I know she's different, she's family, you know.
29:36And I...
29:37Because it's true, it's absolutely true that people will overlook loads of things if somebody's family.
29:45It was all dramas, really.
29:49So perhaps that's why it was neither fish nor fowl, you know.
29:54But there was one sketch which was based on an Edith Wharton short story about a woman who comes home
30:01having been basically sort of sold to some immensely rich person
30:10in the way that Wharton wrote so brilliantly about marriage and the ignorance that existed in marriage
30:16and the ignorance of sex that women, you know, floundered under.
30:21I mean, what a repressive thing to do, not tell anyone how it works.
30:26And then suddenly someone turns up with that.
30:29And you go, what am I, what, what, what's happening now?
30:33How, what, what are you doing?
30:35That's no, no.
30:37I mean, seriously, and it still goes on, people still are not told.
30:42And Wharton wrote this incredible story, and then I wrote a sketch which was about that,
30:47but it was the funny version.
30:49And that was the thing that led to Sense and Sensibility.
30:51And I believe that we have it for you.
30:53I believe we have it for you.
30:54Yes.
30:55Let me just, before we play it, I do also want to draw the curtain aside slightly.
30:59So we find, we want to find this sketch.
31:02It's from the television show Thompson.
31:04And it is, it's not, I try to buy it in the normal ways.
31:11And the normal ways are closed to me.
31:13It's not available.
31:14It's there, it wasn't made in a time of DVDs.
31:17And so, you very kindly contacted the original producer.
31:22And so they mailed us the DVD, a DVD from London.
31:28At which point, it's stolen.
31:36And we all get this photograph in our inboxes of a torn apart package
31:41that has then been taped back together over empty air.
31:46And when you see it, because luckily there are teenagers.
31:51Do you know what I mean?
31:52Like a teenager was able to help in the digitization project in London.
31:56And so we have it for you.
31:59But when you watch it, I want you to think about the experience of that thief.
32:05Okay?
32:08Getting himself his DVD player.
32:10Putting it in.
32:11And this is what he sees.
32:13And how is our precious newlywed?
32:17Very well, dear Mama.
32:18Very happy.
32:19I only came to ask your advice on something I have found a little puzzling.
32:23My dear.
32:24I am all attention.
32:26Well, it is a strange story, to be sure.
32:28And I should be very interested to hear what you think of it.
32:31A story?
32:32Oh, do tell!
32:34Ha, ha, ha.
32:35Well, last Sunday we were in the conservatory after dinner.
32:40John with his newspaper and I, darning a sock.
32:43When suddenly he laid aside his newspaper and pointing to something in his lap said,
32:48Do you know what this is?
32:50Well, I leant over and was somewhat taken aback to see an organic object,
32:56the shape of a cigar nestling up to him.
32:59But I leant over to examine it better, whilst taking out my eyeglass.
33:03I fear my eyesight is weaker, Mama.
33:05And remarked upon what an interesting-looking little object it was.
33:09Whereupon, on my life, Mama, it shrank into itself like a telescope before my very eyes.
33:14I confess, I shrieked aloud.
33:16How extraordinary.
33:20Augusta, do go to your room, dear.
33:23No, I want to hear the story.
33:26Was it a creature from his laboratory?
33:28Exactly as I thought, my dear.
33:30Perhaps he has brought home an experiment.
33:32But there it lay, utterly inert.
33:34Looking for all the world, like...
33:36Like a small, pink, hairless mouse.
33:40Augusta, I do wish you would fetch me some darling wolf.
33:44No, I want to hear about the mouse.
33:47And so you shall, my dear.
33:49I examined it with some disgust.
33:51And then said that whatever it was, it seemed to be dead.
33:54To which point John heaved a great sigh and rose to leave the room.
33:58And here is the strangest part of the matter.
34:01For, instead of dropping to the floor as I had expected and feared,
34:05for indeed I would have had to have summoned Matilda to brush it up,
34:09for I could not have touched it for all the world.
34:11Horrid little thing with no features.
34:14However, it remained hanging from John's midriff,
34:18as though clinging on for dear life.
34:21He turned to leave the room with the creature still clutching onto him.
34:24And when I quizzed him about it later that evening,
34:26he declined to discuss the matter.
34:28Is it not strange, Mama?
34:29I want to see the mouse!
34:31Sugar!
34:32It was not a pretty mouse, dear.
34:34I do not think you would like the mouse.
34:45We should have had a laugh track.
34:47We should have had a laugh track.
34:48That's my mother and my sister, by the way.
34:51My actual mother and sister.
34:53So, the logical thing happens.
35:01You're a gifted comedian.
35:03You make several beautiful Shakespearean roles indelibly.
35:09You go into film.
35:11But the roles that we know and love you for are sort of sometimes laughter through tears.
35:18I think of them kind of as Chekhovian masterpieces.
35:23So you have, you know, the scene from Love Actually,
35:27which I was going to show but won't,
35:29because the video people at the New Yorker said,
35:32Helen, you've chosen 11,000 clips.
35:35And I said, sure, but they're also good.
35:38So we, but we're not going to do it.
35:39But you can play it in your mind.
35:40Now, but then what happens more recently,
35:45we're just going to leap forward a couple of years here,
35:47is that you have a somewhat unanticipated journey into action heroism.
35:56Because right now, the two roles that people can see you in right now, today, this week,
36:03actually, what you saw when we came in is Down Cemetery Road,
36:07which starts Wednesday on Apple TV.
36:11And you kick ass and take names, right?
36:18I mean, that's, I think, there's a real kind of capability
36:23and brio and swagger in that part.
36:29And at the same time, there is Dead of Winter,
36:33which is an action film in which you are, you save,
36:40oh, I can't talk about the ending.
36:42So might save, you know what I mean?
36:45Might save somebody.
36:47And it involves running and shooting and sliding on ice
36:52and horrible things happening to your body, etc.
36:56And so I wonder if, in approaching those two parts,
37:01you could think about, or you could tell us a little bit about,
37:04your, when you begin that,
37:07are you doing something similar as when you are thinking about something as a comic role?
37:11Is it all, or is it all on a spectrum for you?
37:14Is it all the same thing?
37:15Oh, I know, I think it was a huge mistake.
37:18Don't start your action career at the age of 66.
37:22It's stupid, because your body is not so strong
37:27and you hurt yourself, like, a lot.
37:30So, Dead of Winter, it was written by these two wonderful Minnesotan guys
37:36and is funny, of course, as well.
37:39Yeah.
37:40But it's about grief, really.
37:42And then there's a bit of running about, obviously, in the snow.
37:47It was ghastly.
37:48And as I was doing it, I was thinking, why did I sign up for this?
37:53And then Down Cemetery Road, which is a wonderful line from a Philip Larkin novel,
37:57give me your arm, old toad, help me down Cemetery Road.
38:01It's such a beautiful poem about death.
38:03Anyway, death, death, death.
38:05Oh, we laugh.
38:08But...
38:10So, the character in Down Cemetery Road is...
38:14Oddly enough, I think she circles back to my teenage years
38:19because I think of her as someone who decided quite early on,
38:24having grown up in the seamy streets of Camden Town in London,
38:28you know, going to a girls' school where there are guys outside
38:31at the end of the school day exposing themselves,
38:34which is what happened all the time when I was going to school.
38:37I mean, it was just normal.
38:38It was a normal thing.
38:39You're just like, oh, you've got those guys there.
38:41It was all that going on.
38:43And it was...
38:46Of course, it was a girls' school.
38:48So, women had only just...
38:50They'd only just decided that we were allowed to be educated.
38:53And so, the school was in the middle of, like, just roads, you know, and traffic.
38:59So, I'm surprised any of us survived the carbon monoxide poisoning
39:02that we all suffered from during those seven years.
39:05But it was a great school.
39:08But Zoe, I think, has decided early on,
39:10probably owing to not a great childhood and not very supportive parents,
39:15not to be a good girl.
39:18Bliss.
39:20Imagine that.
39:21Imagine not having to be polite to everyone.
39:25Imagine not having to, you know, do those things,
39:29be a nice wife, a nice mother, a good mother,
39:34a really nice person, a very caring person,
39:37and making sure that everybody's okay all the time.
39:40Because that's what you do.
39:42Because otherwise, you're being selfish.
39:45Not to be a good girl, I think,
39:48is one of the most revolutionary things any woman can do.
39:51I really mean it.
39:53Because, and believe me, I was a good girl.
39:58I was very good.
39:59And I can still put my back into it, being a good girl.
40:05But I do resent that greatly,
40:09that necessity somehow always to assuage your way through life.
40:15And she just doesn't do that.
40:18And it's a very releasing and refreshing way to be.
40:24So that's her.
40:26Because the, in this complex comic analysis I was doing,
40:31that it requires a face, body and voice,
40:33is the, I think you can see just in the way that she's standing in that clip,
40:38when you're, I think very wisely, it pulls back and shows your whole body
40:43as you're standing in the doorway,
40:44and then you're going to come forward and shake her hand,
40:46is you see how kind of completely unbound the character is, right?
40:51Shoulders are back. There's no tension.
40:53And there's also a lot of really good sex in this, in, for you in this, you know?
41:00Like, and, spoiler, and the, the, that also feels like a political act.
41:10To be really comfortable and funny in bed, frankly.
41:17If, I'm not going to make them find it and play it,
41:22but last night I was watching the sex scene from The Tall Guy.
41:26That is a hell of a sex scene.
41:28Oh God. Jeff Goldblum.
41:30He was so wonderful.
41:32We both had indigestion for two weeks beforehand,
41:34because we were so frightened.
41:36And then we spent three days, basically, nude.
41:39Completely nude.
41:40And it, yeah, absolutely.
41:42And, but what's so lovely is, is what nudity,
41:49this is another thing that I love, is that when you are nude on a set,
41:54the set suddenly becomes incredibly, what mine do, very protective,
42:00and quite sort of, there's something enters the room with your nudity,
42:05which is the need to be sort of respectful.
42:09So, like, the props people will come up and give you a prop.
42:12Here is your prop.
42:13And then they will walk away like that.
42:15You know, not making sure that they, you know, they don't look at any of your bits.
42:21And, of course, by the end of two days, Jeff and I were so relaxed.
42:26We were bouncing around on pianos and, you know, getting toast and butter stuck to our arses
42:32and laughing uproariously and everybody got used to it.
42:35But it was a, and the campaign against pornography, which existed at the time,
42:39can you believe it, pornography is all the rage these days,
42:41actually chose it as a scene that they would show their children to say,
42:46this is what sex can be, joyful, funny, erotic, but also just playful, you know?
42:56And at the time, all those films were being made like Showgirls
43:01and, to a certain extent, I suppose, Basic Instinct, where everyone having sex just looked so angry.
43:06Just looked so furious.
43:12And also slightly in pain.
43:15And, you know, both parties, I mean, you know, no comment.
43:18I mean, I just was just like, why?
43:22Why is that? How is it supposed to be?
43:25Everyone just has that kind of, look.
43:28Strain, strain, not good for the heart, you know.
43:32This leads me to our very final clip, which is from a beautiful recent film.
43:39Good luck to you, Leo Grand.
43:44Is that my daughter?
43:48Woo.
43:49Yes.
43:51Thank you to the planted woo in the crowd.
43:54And this is, when I think about just pure comic technique,
44:01about how tension moves around your body
44:04and then releases out of sort of surprising molecules.
44:09This is the scene that I think of.
44:11Can we watch that, please?
44:13Well, you come up, step and knock the top.
44:21You stay a little wide, then you do a little walk on the road.
46:22And that scene, you know, Nancy's forgotten how to dance.
46:30She used to know how to dance.
46:31When she was 16, she knew how to dance.
46:34And she watches him and then she copies him a bit.
46:36And then slowly she finds her groove, you know, and she gets back into it.
46:41And then the phone rings and it's her daughter and she goes back to being a good girl.
46:46And Nancy is the person who's been the good girl all her life.
46:49She's done everything right.
46:51Everything's right.
46:51She's ticked all the boxes.
46:52And she's got to the age of whatever, 60, whatever, and gone.
46:57I haven't lived.
46:59I've forgotten to live.
47:00I wasn't able to live.
47:02That path wasn't open to me.
47:04There were too many other roles I could take that were so approved of.
47:10This is the thing.
47:12You know, you go and do the good thing and everyone says, this is great.
47:15You're doing so good.
47:16This is great what you're doing.
47:17Yes, you're a good teacher and you're a good mother and you're a good wife.
47:20And everyone goes, okay, well, fine.
47:21And then suddenly you go, but what about what's inside me?
47:25For so many women, they don't know what they want because no one's ever asked them, least of all them.
47:32So what Nancy does, which is one of the bravest things I've ever seen anyone do, I've never seen a story like this, is she actually hires a sex worker.
47:42And at the end of the movie, Sophie Hyde, the wonderful director, said, well, you need to stand in front of the mirror naked.
47:54And that was very hard.
47:57But I have written all my life about the punitive societal need for women to be thin, which exists in our societies, in northern societies, rich societies, not elsewhere.
48:15And I've written about it.
48:17That was one of the first sketches I wrote was called Auto Cannibalism.
48:21Eat yourself to within an optimum body weight.
48:23And I didn't realise, you know, that actually, of course, that's about anorexia, which many, many people suffer from and die from.
48:32It kills more than any other mental illness, actually.
48:36So there I was up against my own internal sort of self-hatred and loathing.
48:42So I thought, what am I going to do?
48:43I went and had a look at Cranach's beautiful paintings of Adam and Eve because I thought I've got to find something sort of pre-lapsarian, you know,
48:53because when did I decide, when did I decide that I was the wrong shape?
48:58About when I was 13, about the same age as I was finding out it was great to make people laugh.
49:03I was also thinking, hey, it would be great to be thin.
49:06That would be better.
49:07You know, that was the time when you went to the school canteen and said, I'll have a yoghurt, you know,
49:12and then spent the rest of the afternoon half asleep because you haven't eaten enough.
49:15Just this ridiculous, ridiculous, as though somehow as soon as women started to be able to afford things,
49:23they were asked to spend it all on diet products.
49:26You know, as soon as they started to take space, they were asked to get smaller.
49:31That's how it appears to me in the 20th century.
49:34So anyway, I went and looked at all these beautiful pictures and I saw Adam and Eve in these pictures.
49:38They always stand in these medieval pictures, you know, they stand with one knee bent.
49:43You can't quite see because of my trousers.
49:45But just sort of stood there like that, very, very relaxed.
49:50And so I tried to do that.
49:53And I'll tell you, it was one of the most difficult things I've ever done.
49:56Because who does that?
49:58Who stands in front of a mirror?
50:00I mean, male or female now, I think.
50:01And just looks at it and is able, without judgment, simply to accept.
50:08I'm not saying we should just be going, hey, well done.
50:12You know, no, not that.
50:14Just not to judge.
50:17We're encouraged to hate our bodies.
50:20And there's so many products out there that encourage us to hate our bodies.
50:25Because they're saying this isn't good enough and that's not good enough.
50:28And models are tiny and yet are given curves by clever photography, you know.
50:34And so I did a lot of travel for that movie because I was so passionate about it.
50:39And I had so many interesting conversations with the audience members afterwards.
50:44But oftentimes people would come up to me and say, oh, I saw that film you did.
50:50I was so brave.
50:51Which is another way of saying, you're so fat.
50:54And I would just go, thank you so much.
51:03But you could see in their eyes that it was as though I had just appeared in the center pages of National Geographic.
51:10You know, that something had come into their vision that wasn't, it was just weird.
51:16Why would you see that body on the screen?
51:18It's huge.
51:19I mean, Daryl and I went to the German, to the Berlin Film Festival and watched it there.
51:24You know, this huge screen.
51:26And there it is, your body, which is very well lit.
51:33You need to shut.
51:38But you know, you can't, you can't say that.
51:40I couldn't, I couldn't ever say that about myself.
51:43I couldn't, I couldn't, and I admit that to you all with a, you know, an open heart, because I know you understand.
51:50But it was nonetheless a revolutionary film.
51:54And I'm very, very proud that we made it.
51:57So, we're going to take the audience questions in a speed round.
52:10And as Leo says to Nancy, we're going to have a good time.
52:15Okay.
52:16So, the first question, fast as you can.
52:19Kate Winslet recently said you were her favorite co-star.
52:21Aw, that's very sweet.
52:24But can you talk about, can you list three women you learned from as a performer?
52:32Vanessa Redgrave.
52:34We did Howard's End together.
52:35And Vanessa was just completely without any starry thing, any guile, any, we just would, I mean, I was, you know, a lot younger.
52:46And she was so kind and so good.
52:52And there's no acting, really.
52:54So, all you need to do, we should say to each other, let's just do it.
53:00And we'll do it with each other.
53:01And it was fine.
53:02So, she was one.
53:03And my mum, watching my mother, doing things like Ibsen and Shakespeare, you know, seeing her on stage, seeing her change, just seeing someone who was your mother and then doing something so foreign and strange.
53:22And, oh, God, co-stars.
53:28Fuck.
53:29Women directors, maybe?
53:31Working with a woman director or a woman playwright?
53:33Oh, yeah, yeah.
53:33I mean, Sophie, absolutely, our Australian director on Good Luck to Leo Grant.
53:39So, the thing about Sophie was that she held us very safe.
53:42You know, both Daryl and I needed to be very, very safe.
53:47Because Daryl also was frightened.
53:49And we used to talk about the irony of him looking the way he looks, like a unicorn, you know, and thinking, why are you bloody...
54:01We did this wonderful exercise.
54:03I do recommend it.
54:04Just get a load of big paper and you lie on the ground naked and you get your partner to draw around you and you make a sort of body map.
54:15And then you write on the map the bits of your body that you like or you don't like or you feel are scarred internally or externally.
54:23And it was such a good thing to do.
54:25And we did that one day.
54:27And Sophie had to take her clothes off as well.
54:29So, the three of us spent the day nude.
54:32And by the end of it, you see, you're fine.
54:34You don't...
54:35You've forgotten, really.
54:36But it's a very humbling and levelling thing, nudity.
54:42Let's all take...
54:43Yeah, I know.
54:45We've locked the doors and you can't leave until you're naked.
54:49So, this is about writing.
54:51And are you writing now?
54:53Am I writing?
54:54Are you writing right now?
54:55Yes.
54:56Yes.
54:56I am.
54:57I'm writing three things.
54:58One is the musical version, please don't judge me, of Nanny McPhee.
55:04So, we've been writing this for eight years.
55:08And as it turns out, it turns out to be about grief.
55:10It's about grief.
55:11It's about loss and us not being able to face our losses.
55:15And suddenly, my grandmother's voice is coming through saying,
55:18your heart's no good as a heart until it's been broken at least ten times.
55:22Isn't that a good remark?
55:23Because of the scarring, which makes it stronger.
55:26So, one of our songs is called Patchwork Heart.
55:29You heard it here first.
55:30Anyway, so I'm writing that.
55:33I've done an adaptation of Pat Barker's book, The Silence of the Girls.
55:37Because one of my great passions is the Trojan War.
55:41So, this is about Briseis, Achilles' slave queen.
55:46And Pat had written this wonderful, wonderful book.
55:48And I was asked to adapt it.
55:50And during the adaptation, I realised something quite interesting that I want to share.
55:54Because I've only started to think about it and talk about it now.
55:58Which is that films about war often overlook what women have to cope with in war.
56:06And often that's because rape is a weapon of war.
56:09Always has been, always will be.
56:11And we are not ashamed of killing and being killed.
56:15But we are ashamed of raping and being raped.
56:18So, we don't make films about the shameful things.
56:21And that's one of the reasons why women's experience of war is so often glossed over.
56:27We don't know the stories because we can't bear to tell them.
56:30And we were sending the film out to various people.
56:34And they just kept on coming back saying it's a little bit rapey.
56:37And I said, yeah, yeah.
56:41That's what it's about.
56:43They were taken.
56:44These women were taken.
56:45And that is an act of war.
56:48So, if we don't see them surviving and doing these extraordinary acts of heroism.
56:54Trying to protect the young.
56:56Putting their bodies first.
56:57The way in which women always behave in war.
57:00But we don't tell those stories.
57:02So, that's another thing I'm writing.
57:04Yes.
57:05Bravo.
57:06Bravo.
57:09So, we have 49 seconds.
57:13We now have 46 seconds.
57:17And I just wanted to read one thing.
57:21Which is Alan Rickman's diaries were published.
57:26And so, I was looking through them.
57:29Because, of course, we've worked together.
57:32And he says this thing about you.
57:36He calls you a Rolls Royce after a day on the set.
57:41And then, in one of the first meetings, he says,
57:44What an easy, enjoyable person.
57:47She says, fuck a lot.
57:54Can you please thank Emma Thompson?
57:56Thank you, a lot.
57:59Thank you, Sally.
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