Emma Thompson

Emma Thompson is a British actress, screenwriter and author whose career spans sketch comedy, prestige television, Shakespeare, literary adaptation, family film and contemporary drama. Born in London on 15 April 1959, she is the daughter of actors Eric Thompson and Phyllida Law and the sister of actress Sophie Thompson. She studied at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she became part of the Footlights comedy tradition before moving into stage and screen work.

Thompson's early public profile grew through British television and theatre. She appeared in the sketch series Alfresco and achieved major recognition in 1987 with the television dramas Tutti Frutti and Fortunes of War, winning BAFTA television honors. Her stage breakthrough included the West End revival of Me and My Girl. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, she was frequently associated with Kenneth Branagh, appearing in Henry V, Dead Again and Much Ado About Nothing.

Her international film career accelerated with Merchant Ivory's Howards End, for which she won the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actress. In 1993 she received two Academy Award nominations in the same year, for The Remains of the Day and In the Name of the Father. Thompson then wrote and starred in Sense and Sensibility, Ang Lee's adaptation of Jane Austen's novel. The screenplay won her the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, making her the only person to have won Oscars for both acting and writing.

Thompson's later screen work has mixed drama, comedy and family entertainment. She appeared in Primary Colors, Love Actually, Wit, Angels in America, Stranger than Fiction, An Education, Saving Mr. Banks, Late Night and Good Luck to You, Leo Grande. She wrote and starred in Nanny McPhee, adapting Christianna Brand's Nurse Matilda books into a successful family-film character, and returned for Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang. For younger audiences she is also familiar as Professor Sybill Trelawney in the Harry Potter films, Queen Elinor in Pixar's Brave, Mrs. Potts in Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Baroness von Hellman in Cruella and Miss Trunchbull in Matilda the Musical.