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How does someone do such mainstream-Hollywood-y things as win Oscars, divorce ex-co-stars, and appear as the love interest in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, and somehow still remain unassailably cool? In Emma Thompson's case, being British, and adorable, apparently has a lot to do with it.
We'll be the first to admit it: we're so easily charmed by a British accent that it can convince us to forgive almost anything. Like, soliciting oral attention from a working girl (in Hugh Grant's case). Or headlining a Garry Marshall movie, in Julie Andrews's case. Or, being friends with Russell Crowe, in Paul Bettany's case. There's more to love about Emma Thompson, though, than just her RADA-friendly speaking voice. How do we love Emma Thompson? Let us count the ways.
1. Thompson seems to live her life without apology. And she's done things that, when other, less-cool actresses of her generation have done them, have caused tongues to wag. Like, taking up with, and later parting from, a fellow actor and frequent co-star, as she did with Kenneth Branagh (and from which she emerged far less tainted, and far less a subject of the public's voracious appetite for celebrity-divorce dirt, than Nicole Kidman did when she broke up with Tom Cruise). Or, like hooking up with a much younger man (a total non-issue in Thompson's case, unlike when Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher did the same a few years later), and then having his baby first and getting married later (like Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas did, only in Thompson's case she and her now-husband, Greg Wise, did it without selling the photo rights to some trashy British rag. Oh, and neither Thompson nor Wise possesses a disgustingly saggy ass once documented on film in Basic Instinct).
Thompson just does her thing, gracefully rolling with whatever publicity she does get, and not "trying" to get "less" by suing every publication that prints things about her that she doesn't care for. (It's safe to say that Thompson wouldn't give a toss if strangers got the impression -- mistaken or not -- that she was on the Atkins diet.)
2. She is a jack of two trades, and mistress of both. Yeah, we know: it's not so unusual these days for a showbiz celebrity to fancy herself, all at once, an actress, a pop star, a dancer, a TV producer, a fragrance creator, a fashion designer, and a restauranteur. (Hi, J.Lo!) Okay, granted, Lopez and her fingers, residing as they do in such multifarious pies, is an extreme example. But even when actors strike out into new career sidelines that are related to their primary occupation as performers -- when a Kevin Costner directs a The Postman, or when a Bruce Willis records a pop album -- we have learned not to expect that whatever talent a star has in one job will also show up in another.
Not so in Emma Thompson's case: in addition to being a genius actor, with the fancy awards to prove it (and which she won back when they still kind of meant something...but more on that later), she's also an ass-kicking screenwriter...with the fancy awards to prove it. Yes, yes, we know this too: the Academy loves giving actors Best Director Oscars, even when they really, really don't deserve them (like, for instance, that time Costner won Best Director for Dances With Wolves over Martin Scorsese for GoodFellas). But Thompson's really got the goods. It's the rare theretofore-unproduced screenwriter who'd not only dare to adapt one of the greatest novelists in the English language, but then do such a brilliant job of it that she'd win an Oscar for it. We love the novel Sense And Sensibility. And we love the movie equally. That is a difficult feat; Thompson -- both as an actor and as a screenwriter -- pulled it off.
3. She's...just so goddamn cool. As far as we can tell, she is: it's possible that her various appearances on talk shows have been put-ons; it's not like she isn't an awesome actor, after all. But we just saw her on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and it reminded us exactly why we love her: she's the bomb. She came out elegantly dressed and beautifully coiffed, and then proceeded to tell -- awesomely, in that lovely, plummy accent -- dirty stories about her nephew's bad behaviour on her wedding day, and the midge bites her (lovely and talented trophy) husband suffered on his junk because he had an unfurnished basement beneath his nuptial kilt.
Unlike so many other celebrities, Thompson still seems tickled by fame, and joyful about her job. And yes, she's so choosy about her parts that, Junior excepted, there's virtually nothing she's done that we don't want to see -- right up to this year's feature film Love Actually, and the HBO movie adaptation of Tony Kushner's Angels In America. And yet, her decision to scale back her work schedule since the birth of her daughter, has meant that Best Actress Oscar has been awarded not to genuinely excellent performers, but to a succession of pretty young things whose talent is kind of debatable: after all, Gwyneth Paltrow followed her Best Actress win with Bounce; Hilary Swank with The Affair Of The Necklace; Julia Roberts with Full Frontal; Halle Berry with Die Another Day; and the aforementioned Kidman with The Stepford Wives.
We just feel like if Thompson were getting her due props, and really occupied her rightful place at the top of the A list of totally bad-ass actors, it would help raise our expectations of everyone else in the business. That is what should happen.
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