Emma Thompson

Dame Emma Thompson (born April 15, 1959) is a British actress and screenwriter. Her career spans over four decades in film, television, and theater, and she has received multiple awards, including two Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. In 2018, she was honored with a damehood (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to the performing arts.

Thompson was born to actors Eric Thompson and Phyllida Law. She attended Newnham College, Cambridge, where she joined the Footlights troupe and appeared in the comedy sketch series Alfresco (1983–1984). Her career gained momentum with a starring role in the West End revival of Me and My Girl in 1985. In 1987, she received widespread recognition for her performances in the BBC series Tutti Frutti and Fortunes of War, for which she won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress. During the early 1990s, she frequently collaborated with her then-husband, actor and director Kenneth Branagh, in films including Henry V (1989), Dead Again (1991), and Much Ado About Nothing (1993).

Thompson won the BAFTA Award and the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the Merchant-Ivory period drama Howards End (1992). In 1993, she received two Academy Award nominations—Best Actress for The Remains of the Day and Best Supporting Actress for In the Name of the Father, making her one of the few actors to be nominated in both categories in the same year. She wrote and starred in Sense and Sensibility (1995), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, becoming the only person to win Oscars for both acting and screenwriting. She also won a BAFTA for the film. Additional critical praise came for her roles in Primary Colors (1998), Love Actually (2003), Saving Mr. Banks (2013), Late Night (2019), and Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022).

Thompson has appeared in a variety of other films, including the Harry Potter series (2004–2011), Nanny McPhee (2005), Stranger than Fiction (2006), An Education (2009), Men in Black 3 (2012) and its spin-off Men in Black: International (2019), Brave (2012), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Cruella (2021), and Matilda the Musical (2022). Her television work includes Wit (2001), Angels in America (2003), The Song of Lunch (2010), King Lear (2018), and Years and Years (2019). She also performed as Mrs. Lovett in a Lincoln Center production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in 2014. With authorization from the publishers of Beatrix Potter, Thompson has written three Peter Rabbit children's books.