- 7 minutes ago
Emma Thompson joins GQ as she revisits some of the most iconic characters from her career so far: from her Oscar-winning portrayal of Margaret Schlegel in Howards End to her role in the festive classic, Love Actually.Credits:Director: Posy DixonDirector of Photography: Giles CahalaneEditor: Chris JonesTalent: Emma ThompsonProducer: Camille Ramos; Liam Woolmer-ThompsonCreative Producer: Kristen DeVoreLine Producer: Jen SantosAssociate Producer: Grace O'ConnorProduction Manager: James Pipitone; Elizabeth HymesTalent Booker: Emily JamesCamera Operator: Oliver PearsonGaffer: Caterina Castro FrigerioSound Mixer: Chris SmithProduction Assistant: Lona MezaPost Production Supervisor: Jess DunnSupervising Editor: Rob LombardiAssistant Editor: Billy Ward
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00And I went to the opening of Love, actually, and Hugh Grant came up behind me and said,
00:04is that the most psychotic thing we've ever made?
00:14Sense and sensibility.
00:16You talk of feeling idle and useless.
00:19Imagine how that is compounded when one has no hope and no choice of any occupation whatsoever.
00:26Our circumstances are therefore precisely the same.
00:32Except that you will inherit your fortune.
00:38We cannot even earn ours.
00:40So Lindsay I had made with Ken Branagh dead again.
00:44So I'd met her and Scott Frank had written it, and we'd become very close making that film.
00:49And then Lindsay had seen a television series, a comedy series I had made.
00:53In it, there was a sketch about a woman coming home to see her mother.
01:01She'd been living with her husband, and she's come home to her mother to investigate a mystery that she can't quite work out
01:08about a little creature, a little hairy creature that lives in her husband's lap.
01:13And that he's introduced her to, and she said, you know, do you know what this is?
01:20It's about sexual ignorance, actually, and it was based on an Edith Wharton story that was very serious.
01:26But I made it into a sort of comedy sketch.
01:28Because it's set in Victorian times, Lindsay thought,
01:31I'm going to ask this woman to write Sense and Sensibility,
01:36because she can deal with language, and she's funny.
01:41It's fascinating adapting a book for film, because you can never know.
01:45It's a very good piece of advice.
01:47If anybody's thinking of adapting a book, just dramatise the whole thing.
01:51And you'll find that scenes that really are nothing in the book are huge, acted out.
01:56Lindsay, who was responsible for choosing the director,
02:00pointed at me in the direction of Ang Lee's film, The Wedding Banquet, Timonese film.
02:05There's a line in it where the elder sister says to the younger sister,
02:08what do you know of my heart?
02:10Which is exactly what Eleanor says to Marianne.
02:12Eleanor, where is your heart?
02:16What do you know of my heart?
02:18What do you know of anything but your own suffering?
02:21And I thought, that's so interesting.
02:23But clearly he understood everything.
02:25In the same way as Kazuo Ishiguro understands everything in Remains of the Day.
02:30He understood class, he understood repression, he understood sisters,
02:35he understood family, he understood snobbery.
02:38He was just extraordinary.
02:40And he didn't really speak English at that time.
02:44So it's before everything he made.
02:45It's his first English language movie.
02:47And on the first day when we were shooting,
02:49me and Hugh Grant were shooting something.
02:51At the end of it we said,
02:52Oh, actually, Ang, you know, can we do that again?
02:54Can we just walk, we just want to walk this direction.
02:58Can we just try it a slightly different way?
02:59And he reacted very well and quietly.
03:03And then I discovered subsequently that no one had ever questioned him before.
03:07Because, as he said, in Hysterics, some weeks later,
03:11in Taiwan, the director is God.
03:14You don't ever, actors, you just move them around.
03:18They're just pieces.
03:19He said, it's absolutely not collaborative.
03:25And actually he loved it.
03:26He loved the collaboration.
03:27If it will be of any satisfaction to you, however,
03:31to be told that I believe his character to be in all other respects irrepressible,
03:35then I'm ready to confess it.
03:37And in return for such an acknowledgement that must give me some pain,
03:40you cannot deny me the privilege of disliking him as much as I adore
03:45this cottage.
03:52It was a very happy film.
03:54But in terms of the cast, we were so lucky because they were all, in a way, theatre people.
04:03Kate was 19, so she was untried.
04:05I mean, she'd done Heavenly Creatures, but that was it.
04:07And she was heaven on earth and still is, you know, just a completely normal person.
04:13Hugh, I kept on saying, God, Hugh, you're so grumpy.
04:16You've got the energy of a whelk.
04:18And he would respond quite well to that.
04:19But actually, I think it was nice for him to do something like that at that point.
04:23Alan Rickman, God rest him.
04:25He was so happy to be playing someone heroic and nice because he'd been,
04:30he was so fed up with people wanting him to be the sheriff of Nottingham.
04:34They just came on and were those people.
04:37I mean, it was as though they knew Austen personally.
04:39You know, she'd drawn from them rather than the other way around.
04:42So it was a group of actors who understood one another, you know,
04:46and there were no egos to speak of.
04:49So there was no one to navigate.
04:51So we could just be love, actually.
04:55So what's this big news, then?
04:59We've been given our parts in the Nativity play.
05:01And I'm the lobster.
05:03The lobster?
05:04Yeah.
05:05In the Nativity play?
05:06It's the ultimate ensemble, isn't it?
05:10We did sort of get flung into our pieces one by one.
05:15I do remember opening it in New York.
05:18And I'd just done Wit with Mike Nichols, which is not a rom-com at all,
05:23and something very serious.
05:25You know, and sad.
05:27And I went to the opening of that and then the opening of Love, actually.
05:31And Hugh Grant came up behind me and said,
05:33Is that the most psychotic thing we've ever made?
05:37And I said, well, you know, time will tell.
05:42Time will tell.
05:43And time has told.
05:44It holds up because it's so full of Richard's deep love for humanity.
05:50I've worked with Hugh Grant so many times.
05:52And he's been my brother, my lover, my old sort of husband person.
05:57As somebody I've served as a servant in Remains of the Day.
06:00We've done so many things together.
06:01I worked it out.
06:02I thought, I think I've worked with him more than anyone.
06:05More than Alan Reitman.
06:05More than anyone.
06:07And it's always been a completely different relationship.
06:10It was easy, really, to do.
06:24I knew what being heartbroken felt like.
06:27So it wasn't difficult.
06:29We did it about, I don't know, four or five times.
06:31Richard Curtis snivelling in the corner, which was very funny.
06:34It was just that thing that I so understand of people crying and then,
06:40but not wanting to cry and then having to cover it up.
06:43Nobody, there's nobody who doesn't know what that's like.
06:44Or no woman that doesn't know what that's like.
06:46Especially if they've got kids.
06:48And straightening the bed is just such a natural thing to do at the end.
06:51Because it's just that last little moment of, I'll sort my face out,
06:56push this somewhere where it's not going to be seen,
07:00and then just pat the bed.
07:03Nanny McPhee.
07:16She's my avatar.
07:17She's just this strange, magnetic, odd-looking, female, deep, wise presence,
07:27who's also anarchic, really supports protest of the right kind,
07:32believes that children should be heard and listened to,
07:34is living proof of the fact that you should never judge a book by its cover.
07:39Don't bother with that.
07:40Nonsense.
07:41What I found interesting from the point of view of the films,
07:44I thought it would be fascinating to see someone who changes
07:47according to the way in which people are behaving around her
07:51and according to what's happening inside them
07:53and how they're changing within themselves.
07:56Does she become actually more normal-looking,
08:00or is it because they feel they're beginning to settle, their chaos?
08:05So there's something deeply elemental about her as a character,
08:10but also about my relationship with her.
08:13When we were looking into, when I was researching Saving Mr Banks
08:17and finding out that, well, Roald Dahl, yes, Walt Disney,
08:21yes, Pamela Travers, also Beatrix Potter, presumably Enid Brighton,
08:26that people who write for children, as it were,
08:30they often write for the age where they were most badly damaged,
08:35where they were, or where they needed the most comfort.
08:38And I found that really interesting.
08:40And then I remember that, of course, my father, who died young,
08:44wrote a thing called The Magic Roundabout,
08:46which was a sort of cult programme in the 60s,
08:48which was designed for children, but which he wrote for everyone.
08:53He said, I don't want to write for children.
08:54Children don't exist. That's such a con.
08:57They're just people who haven't lived as long as we have.
09:00But what Dad was doing, I think,
09:02is something that really means a lot to me,
09:04that he was writing for people, for everyone.
09:07It's patronising to change your writing
09:11because you think you're writing for children
09:12and they're not going to understand the darkness.
09:15And Roald Dahl knew that very well.
09:17And you get letters from a little lad writing him saying,
09:21my mum's just hit me and put me in my bedroom
09:24for calling my sister a mollusk.
09:26And he would get letters from parents
09:27complaining about the language, you know,
09:29you can't use language like this for children.
09:32So he'd get out the Oxford English Dictionary,
09:34find all the longest and most abstruse words he could
09:37and write back using all of them.
09:39So he was mischievous like that.
09:41But he also saw something, I think, that's very true.
09:44We're all just people.
09:47You know, we shouldn't talk down to children.
09:49It's just this sense of a kind of cynical writing for children
09:53that I observe a lot.
09:55And I think that's not real writing.
09:57You're not recognising your audience.
10:00This is your most precious, your most sacred audience.
10:02So you make sure that you write something
10:04that's better than you've ever written.
10:05Really focus.
10:08Because if you do that, people can watch it together.
10:13And that's a very precious thing.
10:14Really a precious thing.
10:15So in a way, she's one of the most important people
10:18I've ever played.
10:20Tell us what to do.
10:21You must undo it for yourselves.
10:24How?
10:25How?
10:26Think.
10:28You are very clever, children.
10:30I mean, I'm a sort of Western, really.
10:32I watched a lot of Westerns with my dad.
10:35You know, the unorthodox authoritarian figure
10:38comes in to a chaotic situation
10:40and using unorthodox methods
10:42restores harmony.
10:46It's a Western.
10:47And then has to leave.
10:48That's the absolutely essential thing
10:51is that he or she or they have to leave.
10:55And that's what's so beautiful about it
10:57is accepting that you have to,
10:59you can love, but you have to let go.
11:00You have to be able to let go.
11:01She contains all the most important lessons of life.
11:06Howard's End.
11:09Astonishing bad luck.
11:10But in the whole of London,
11:11they could find no flat to rent.
11:13Except the one bottled right up
11:15against our library window.
11:16Who could find no flat?
11:18I play Margaret Schlegel,
11:21the eldest of, well, three children.
11:24And she's a sort of blue stocking, really.
11:27Struggling with early feminism,
11:30the early ideas at the early part of the 20th century
11:33when everybody thought that, you know,
11:35by the time we got to the early part of the 21st century,
11:38women would, for instance, have equal pay.
11:41How wrong she was
11:42and how disappointed E.M. Forster would be.
11:46It's pathetic, actually.
11:47I just knew exactly who she was.
11:50I didn't have to draw on any experiences.
11:52I knew exactly who she was
11:54because I was a young feminist.
11:56I wrote to James Ivory and said,
11:58I can play this woman because I know who she is.
12:01But I knew that she was someone who
12:04wanted things to change,
12:06was willing to be a part of that.
12:08And then, you know,
12:08made this massive and unexpected compromise.
12:11But in the end is the one who challenges
12:13the sort of deeply patriarchal Mr. Wilcox
12:17and says,
12:18your standards are double.
12:21They are double standards.
12:22And I do not accept them.
12:24And nor should you.
12:26So she's a sort of worrier.
12:27I was just wondering if you were intimidated
12:29playing that romance out with Anthony Hopkins.
12:32Because he was quite a bit older than you at the time.
12:34Yes, he was.
12:35And I think that was right for Mr. Wilcox, of course.
12:38When they did it more recently,
12:39they were far more of an age.
12:40And I think it's much better
12:41that he's older than Margaret.
12:43And Tony had just become more famous than God
12:45in the Silence of the Lambs.
12:46And my mother had known him from,
12:48like, yonks ago,
12:50drama school or something like that.
12:52Because she was sort of his age.
12:55And she sent me into rehearsals
12:56with a little note saying,
12:57please don't eat my daughter.
12:59And that's how we started.
13:01And when he opened it,
13:02he did this thing that Tony does
13:04when he's amused.
13:04He just, he did this,
13:06he does a very strange little snort of merriment.
13:09And I knew we were going to be okay.
13:12He's a wonderful, wonderful man.
13:14I was so lucky.
13:15So, so lucky.
13:16He taught me so much.
13:17And Vanessa Redgrave taught me so much on that film.
13:21They were amazing.
13:22When she kisses him on the stairs.
13:24Vanessa would be most kind.
13:26Yes, she doesn't really know what to do with him,
13:41really, does she?
13:42But then there's a bedroom scene at the end
13:45where you go,
13:45oh, actually,
13:46I think they've had quite a nice time.
13:48She looks pretty relaxed.
13:50And he's very pleased.
13:51At the beginning,
13:52she's really not sure about it.
13:54But of course,
13:55she won't have had sex with anybody, Margaret.
13:57At least he's got a little bit of experience.
14:00But goodness knows what it was like.
14:02I don't want to think about that now, actually.
14:04And you got an Oscar for that, don't you?
14:06I did.
14:06Thank you so much.
14:07Did that change?
14:09Did that change your life?
14:10That's what everyone asked afterwards.
14:12And no,
14:13is the short answer.
14:14And actually the most interesting answer.
14:17In the name of the father.
14:18How can I help you?
14:22I'm the solicitor for the Connons,
14:24Chief Inspector.
14:26Giuseppe Conlon is critically ill,
14:28as you may know.
14:29She's called Gareth Pearce.
14:31And she's a solicitor,
14:33but behaves,
14:34has sort of carte blanche in the film
14:37to behave like a barrister, really.
14:39She's a warrior for social justice.
14:42And this injustice of this banging up of people
14:46for 17 years they were put away.
14:49You know,
14:49people died in jail,
14:50their lives were ruined.
14:52And it was all this tiny piece of forensic evidence
14:55that had been mistaken.
14:57You know,
14:57and it was Gareth who kept on and kept on and kept on.
15:01Of course,
15:01I prepared for it by meeting Gareth.
15:03And Pierce.
15:04Gareth who is still in her 80s
15:06fighting the good fight,
15:08you know,
15:08and defending people
15:09who need help.
15:12And particularly,
15:13of course,
15:13climate change activists as well
15:14who had been put into jail for protesting,
15:16which is entirely outrageous.
15:18When we were making it,
15:20Dan and I were doing a scene
15:21outside the courtroom
15:22and I got a car
15:24stuck against me
15:25and a person.
15:26And it sort of gouged into my finger
15:29and I got a little scar on my finger there,
15:32a little cross-shaped scar
15:33and Gareth's got the same scar
15:34on the same finger.
15:36And I remember thinking,
15:36that's interesting
15:37because she's a very,
15:39very private,
15:40very,
15:42you know,
15:42closed person,
15:43not someone you can say,
15:44so,
15:45Gareth,
15:46how's it been?
15:47She's just not that sort of person.
15:48So you just read her determinations,
15:50watch her cases.
15:51I mean,
15:51she's a solicitor,
15:53you know,
15:53she's not a barrister,
15:54actually.
15:55So we kind of fudged it a bit.
15:56Jim fudged it.
15:57The most extraordinary woman
15:59and the fact that she's still active today
16:01just says it all.
16:02Her passion for justice
16:04remains undimmed.
16:06By God,
16:07you've got your blood,
16:08Mr Nixon.
16:09You've got the blood of Giuseppe Conte
16:11and you've got the lifeblood
16:12of Carol Richardson
16:13and you've got 15 years
16:14of blood and sweat and pain
16:15from my client
16:15whose only crime was it wasn't.
16:17He was bloody well Irish
16:18and he was foolish
16:20and he was in the wrong place
16:21at the wrong time.
16:22Mrs Pierce.
16:23It was multiple takes,
16:24I think,
16:25I just remember getting
16:26really angry.
16:28I think I went very red
16:29in the face
16:30and had to go outside
16:31and cool down
16:32till we do another one
16:33because it's so infuriating.
16:35I'll tell you what was in that
16:36was Corin Redgrave
16:37being evil.
16:38But Corin,
16:39of course,
16:40like Vanessa,
16:41was a deeply politicised
16:42and politically minded man
16:44who was fascinating
16:45to talk to
16:46about all of it.
16:47And he was a tremendous
16:48source of inspiration,
16:50actually,
16:50because he knew so much.
16:52They were so well-informed,
16:54those two.
16:54Remarkable people,
16:55really,
16:56to work with.
16:56Not what you come across now
16:58on a film set.
16:59I did watch it again.
17:00I mean,
17:00just to marvel at
17:01Pete Postlethwaite
17:02and Dan,
17:03of course,
17:03Daniel Day-Lewis,
17:04who was just extraordinary in it.
17:06I just remember
17:07the real camaraderie of it,
17:12that this was a film
17:13that wasn't just a film.
17:15This was a film
17:16about a miscarriage of justice
17:17that had resulted in,
17:19you know,
17:19true,
17:20terrible suffering.
17:22Terrible suffering,
17:23a tragedy.
17:25Saving Mr. Banks.
17:28But she's not a giddy woman.
17:30She doesn't jig about.
17:31I was thinking,
17:32it's frivolous.
17:32It's totally unnecessary
17:33and a governess,
17:35an educator.
17:36No,
17:36it would simply ruin it.
17:38I won't have her turned
17:39into one of your silly cartoons.
17:43The thing about PLT
17:45was that she was really humourless.
17:47Really humourless.
17:49And yet her books,
17:50the first Mary Poppins,
17:52are remarkable.
17:53Remarkable writing.
17:54So she was,
17:55as the film suggests,
17:56as Kelly Marcel,
17:57the writer of the
17:58excellent screenplay suggests,
18:00she was going back
18:01to where she was most in pain
18:04and comforting herself
18:06with Mary Poppins
18:07in the same way
18:08as Disney was comforting himself
18:12with Mickey Mouse.
18:13Childhood reading
18:15is so powerful
18:16and often a great comfort
18:18and often,
18:19you know,
18:20your only escape.
18:21I'd read everything.
18:22I'd spoken to friends of hers
18:23and I'd really,
18:25really went deep into her
18:26because she's a real person.
18:28You know,
18:28she'd had a fantastically
18:30difficult childhood.
18:31I mean,
18:31really appalling,
18:33actually.
18:34So all of that
18:34childhood trauma
18:35and probably
18:36intergenerational trauma
18:38as well
18:39played out
18:40in everything
18:40that she wrote.
18:41And then she visited it
18:43upon her own
18:44adopted children
18:46and she was hugely complicated
18:48and she was much,
18:49much more unpleasant
18:50to the Sherman brothers
18:51than we show in the film.
18:53Responsible
18:54is not a word.
18:57We made it up.
18:59Well,
18:59unmake it up.
19:03She was just awful to them.
19:05I mean,
19:06they just told me these stories
19:07because she kept on
19:08quoting things at them,
19:09which is so irritating.
19:10They stood in front of her
19:12because she would never
19:12eat with them
19:13in the refectory.
19:14She would never
19:15go near anybody
19:16because she just
19:17didn't want to
19:18sort of sully herself,
19:19I suppose.
19:19They both learnt
19:20the Gettysburg Address,
19:22stood in front of her table
19:23and performed it
19:26for her,
19:26which was very witty
19:28and sweet
19:28and kind of
19:29rather a loving thing
19:31to do
19:31and at the end of which
19:32she just went
19:32and left.
19:35What would you most desire?
19:41I mean,
19:42desires are never mundane.
19:45Um,
19:46to have sex
19:49tonight,
19:52um,
19:52with you.
19:54That's about it,
19:55really,
19:56for the moment.
19:57My favourite film
19:58that I've ever done.
20:00It's such a wonderful script.
20:02Katie Brand wrote it.
20:04I mean,
20:04not for me,
20:05but with me
20:05kind of in her mind.
20:07And again,
20:07it was a bit like
20:08Margaret Schlegel.
20:09I knew exactly
20:09who this woman was.
20:11She was like
20:11lots of mates,
20:12I think I had.
20:14People who'd left school
20:15and done
20:16the good girl thing.
20:18Really done it all right.
20:19As she says,
20:20at the end,
20:20I did everything right.
20:22I did everything right.
20:25And I ended up
20:26feeling empty
20:27and as though
20:28I had never had
20:29an adventure.
20:30And I bet you
20:31there's a lot of people
20:32who feel like that still.
20:33Because women still
20:34don't have those choices.
20:36They simply don't.
20:37And it is still
20:38expected of them
20:39that they will be good girls,
20:40that they will be mothers,
20:41otherwise they won't be
20:41natural women.
20:43And all of that
20:43is still swirling around us.
20:45It really is.
20:47Not only that,
20:48you know,
20:48this thing of
20:50sexual pleasure
20:51which supposedly
20:54we had this
20:54sexual revolution
20:55in the 60s
20:56which really benefited
20:57men more than women
20:58instead of
20:58how to deepen
21:00our relationship
21:00with our own
21:01erotic desires,
21:03which are often
21:03very odd,
21:04and deepen our
21:05relationship
21:05with each other.
21:07You know,
21:07sex was sold
21:09as this kind of
21:10transactional thing,
21:11actually.
21:12And the whole
21:12aspect of orgasm,
21:14endless magazine articles,
21:16how to achieve orgasm,
21:17as though orgasm
21:18was some sort of
21:19achievement.
21:20not a natural
21:22human pleasure
21:23that is remarkable
21:25that we have access to.
21:27There are only
21:27a few other animals
21:28we know of
21:29that have access
21:29to that kind of pleasure
21:30that you can give yourself,
21:32you can have with
21:32another person
21:33that is free,
21:35and that there is
21:35so little understanding
21:37of female pleasure.
21:38The fact that
21:39it is quite rare
21:40for a woman
21:40to achieve orgasm
21:41during penetrative sex,
21:43whereas all the performance
21:44of sex in porn
21:45is all about
21:46penetrative sex
21:47making women
21:49come like
21:49steam trains.
21:51Very, very unlikely.
21:53You have to be
21:53super good at it
21:54and know where
21:55your G-spots are.
21:56I think where she has
21:57an orgasm
21:57is super important.
21:58Did you?
22:00Stop asking.
22:01Okay.
22:02You're fixated.
22:04I think you should
22:05drop it.
22:07I know, I know.
22:08I just,
22:09there's no pressure,
22:10of course.
22:10I was just hoping.
22:11Maybe all the others
22:13are faking.
22:15Have you ever
22:16thought of that?
22:19I think that
22:20you don't see that,
22:21an old,
22:21old,
22:22older woman
22:23having an orgasm
22:25on her own.
22:27I've never seen that,
22:29ever.
22:30So I was,
22:31and I'm proud of that scene,
22:32I think it really works well.
22:34We've travelled
22:34all around the world,
22:35me and Daryl,
22:36talking to people,
22:37and it was fascinating to me,
22:39because not only
22:40were we hearing
22:41from gay couples,
22:43particularly male,
22:45gay couples,
22:45saying this film
22:46helped us so much,
22:49and younger women
22:50saying,
22:51I'm 21,
22:52I've never had an orgasm.
22:54People actually able
22:55to say these things.
22:56Nancy's so ashamed.
22:58She's so ashamed,
22:59and she,
22:59she knows what she wants,
23:00she doesn't know
23:01how to get it,
23:01but she has this
23:02trace memory
23:03from when she was 16.
23:05To me,
23:05it's heartbreaking.
23:07She's such a
23:08heartbreaking person,
23:09but at the end of it,
23:10you know,
23:11there's a whole world
23:12available to her,
23:13because she's found her body.
23:15So whenever people say,
23:17do you want to watch a film
23:17and do a Q&A afterwards,
23:19I generally choose that one.
23:20The conversations
23:21are so interesting,
23:22and they're so surprising.
23:24And my grandmother,
23:25who said to me,
23:26on the landing
23:27in our home
23:28when she lived with us,
23:29I feel sorry for men
23:30because they have to do it.
23:33And you go,
23:33oh my God,
23:35you're in your 80s,
23:36and you have never had
23:37any sexual pleasure
23:38at all.
23:39And I think
23:41that's such a waste.
23:43Because we are animals,
23:44we have this
23:45extraordinary capacity.
23:48Down Cemetery Road.
23:51He's got a secretary.
23:52Am I warm?
23:53The secretary's still a thing.
23:56I think someone's
23:56hiding something.
23:57OK, so Big Bang.
24:03Two bodies
24:04and a disappeared child.
24:08Maybe this case
24:09could go all the way
24:10to the top.
24:11I'm a huge Mick Herron fan.
24:13I've been a fan of his
24:13for 15 years.
24:15When I first came across
24:16his books,
24:16I went,
24:17oh my God,
24:17who's this person?
24:18So when I was offered it,
24:20I took it very seriously.
24:22And then I realised
24:23that I would be able
24:24to channel
24:25my shit-kicking
24:26Camden School for Girls
24:28self
24:28from the 1970s.
24:31I thought,
24:32I think she comes
24:33from that.
24:35I think she
24:36grew up
24:37in Finsbury Park.
24:39Actually,
24:40she's not a Londoner
24:41in the book.
24:42She's very different
24:43to what she is
24:43in the books.
24:44She's deeply
24:45unapologetic
24:46and doesn't need
24:48to be a good girl,
24:49doesn't want
24:50to have children,
24:51kicks the shit
24:52out of anybody
24:53who really exhibits
24:55the kind of cruelty,
24:58bigotry,
24:58and idiocy
24:59that so many
25:00she encounters do.
25:03She's passionate
25:03about justice,
25:05about people
25:06being found out
25:08for what they've done.
25:09So she's another avatar.
25:12She really is.
25:13From my youth.
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