Emma Thompson

Daryl McCormack co-stars as a sex worker hired by a repressed 60-something woman who hopes to experience a late-in-life sexual awakening.

In Roald Dahl's original 1988 book and the 1996 film, Miss Trunchbull is the ferocious, tyrannical headteacher at the school attended by gifted young bookworm, ...

Matilda will be released across the UK and Ireland exclusively in cinemas on 2 December 2022. By clicking ‘Register’ you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use, Cookie policy and Privacy notice. Thompson has undergone an impressive transformation for the role.

We all remember being terrified by Miss Trunchbull when reading Roald Dahl's Matilda, and again when watching the 1996 film adaption of Pam Ferris as the ...

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s Matilda the Musical received its West End debut over a decade ago. We all remember being terrified by Miss Trunchbull when reading Roald Dahl’s Matilda, and again when watching the 1996 film adaption of Pam Ferris as the appalling teacher. But fear not, the trailer does not stay scary for long: soon the sing-song and dance moves start.

The streaming giant released a new trailer for the film which stars the award-winning actress alongside a host of famous British faces. Meet the exception to ...

Here's your first look at Emma Thompson as Miss Trunchbull in Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical. pic.twitter.com/W0ocBhW3Lc Netflix has offered the first glimpse of Emma Thompson as the formidable Miss Trunchbull in the upcoming film of Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical. Emma Thompson, Lashana Lynch, and newcomer Alicia Weir star in a brand new take on the Tony and Olivier award-winning musical.

Emma Thompson shines as a repressed widow who hires a male escort to give her an orgasm.

All this risk-taking and spilling of secrets requires space, and Hyde gives it to them by staying out of the way. The Peaky Blinders vet oozes a velvety and unironic sincerity when Leo is providing the full boyfriend experience. “Do you enjoy it?” “Do you feel demeaned?” “Have you been doing this long?” Leo has faced this line of interrogation before, when the unstoppable force of his charm meets the immovable object of a client’s anxiety. Nancy is a 55-year-old widow awaiting the arrival of a sex worker who’ll hopefully give her the first orgasm of her entire life. Emma Thompson is at her prickly, vulnerable, fiercely intelligent best as Nancy, a stand-in for every woman who’s suppressed her sexuality out of shame, feelings of inadequacy or a need to please others. The male escort assigned to this monumental task is the “aesthetically perfect” young Leo (Daryl McCormack) and, as he’ll learn over the course of their four meetings, giving Nancy a chance to premiere her O-face means breaking down her well-established defenses.

Irish actor Daryl McCormack has been building a career for a few years now, mostly gaining notoriety in Britain, having taken over the role of Isaiah Jesus ...

It was just a matter of upping my calorie intake just so that I could grow a bit bigger and work out. I think he is very confident in what he does because he has, in a sense, a calling to do what he does. I was actually in lockdown at the time so I had dumbbells in my room and lifting weights there and going for runs. I knew I had to get into a place with regards to my fitness that represented that moment. We only lived 15 minutes away from the set so we’d walk every morning to work and then walk back (at the end of the day). We just made it our mission to stay in that cocoon and that sense of closeness. I think it’s when Nancy tries to prod and become curious about where that wound is and sees an element (of him) trying to keep the mask up, that was extremely fun to play. They’re very subtly written in by our writer Katy Brand. I feel if we were to have jumped around out of chronological order, to access that emotional arc would have been very very challenging. McCormack: I felt that aspect of how much we show and how much we hide was something interesting in Leo because he’s in a professional environment. That was the first step of the whole process. That rehearsal period was super-necessary and fundamental to us growing that bond and growing that relationship. Angela Dawson: Tell me about working on this together with much of the action and dialogue taking place in this one hotel room set. Problem is, the middle-aged mother of two adult children can’t quite get over her own anxiety about engaging in such unbridled sexual pleasure, so it takes Leo some careful coaxing to get her to relax, which is easier said than done.

Netflix has dropped the first trailer for the upcoming Matilda, and fans can't get over just how different Emma Thompson looks as the devious Miss ...

For the title character of Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, sex is both a vocation and an avocation. To him, giving and receiving pleasure...

Good Luck to You is a gentle, sex-positive story about the value of human connection, closer to the Oscar-nominated sex-surrogate drama The Sessions than a typical movie about a sex worker. For most of the movie, she cuts away from any explicit sex, preferring to focus on the emotional buildup and aftermath, which makes the eventual graphic intimacy all the more satisfying, both for the characters and for the audience. Thompson, of course, is an acting legend, and she conveys every worry and regret of Nancy's life in each line of dialogue and awkward movement. For most of Leo and Nancy's initial encounter, it seems like they might not have sex at all, despite Leo's many reassurances to Nancy about her various insecurities. To him, giving and receiving pleasure is the most exalted of human activities, and he takes great pride in his job as a high-end escort. Nancy (Emma Thompson) and Leo (Daryl McCormack) meet in an anonymous hotel room for what starts out as a business transaction, but becomes a meaningful relationship for both of them.

Dir: Sophie Hyde. Starring: Emma Thompson, Daryl McCormack, Isabella Laughland, Charlotte Ware, Carina Lopes. 15, 97 minutes. “I want to do a blow job,” ...

Sex work, even among the progressively minded, is still treated as something to be kept out of sight and out of mind. “I made him and I’m proud of him,” he says of Leo. Hyde’s film is generous in that way – it understands that he deserves to feel good about himself just as much as Nancy does. McCormack, meanwhile, does a sublime job of essentially playing two characters: the self-assured and chivalrous Leo Grande, and the man who lives behind him. Empowerment is only one piece of the puzzle, which together forms a refreshingly nuanced portrait of sex work, desire and self-perception. “I want to do a blow job,” Emma Thompson’s Nancy announces in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande. “Get that sorted.” She throws those words out as if she were reminding herself to get the oil changed in her car – mechanically, even a little irritably. But there’s a laundry list of sexual activities that she feels compelled to work through, as if they were obligatory steps to earning her womanhood badge.

'Peaky Blinders' star Daryl McCormack, who will be soon seen playing the role of a sex worker in the streaming film 'Good Luck to You, Leo Grande', ...

It felt really exciting to us to actually build that ourselves with the director", the actor concluded. Daryl told 'Variety' during conversation, "I remember at one point the three of us standing butt naked in the room, and Emma just went, 'I feel we're all being held by something bigger here. We decided to make the mermaid speak to us.

A two-hander dramedy about sex and aging is a terrific vehicle for the venerable star.

The politics of the movie are a little tricky, to be sure. The sex is her reward for that effort, not really the audience’s. We’re invited in, but only to see what kind of release and freedom may await us should we try to attend to our own unrealized passions. There is nudity and sex—of the sort that we’d maybe once have patronizingly called brave—but it is held, stylistically and smartly, for a crucial moment late in the film. Surely there are struggles in the work, and a sad enough backstory for Leo is eventually revealed. Nancy (not her real name) has hired Leo (not his, either) because her husband has died and she is trying to make up for lost time. But in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (Hulu, June 17) the gag is more softly stated.

This week Claire Gregory, Katie Spencer and Laura Kramer hear from Paapa Essiedu and Caroline Quentin as they express their excitement for their new show on ...

A prim, unworldly widow hires a sex worker in an a gentle, funny film about female desire and emotional liberation.

In the end, Leo Grande isn’t a film only about sex but also about liberation and emotional intimacy, with oneself and with others. Still, this is a beautifully written look at female desire and self-confidence that isn’t meant to be an essay on prostitution. In one scene towards the end, Thompson stares at her entirely naked 63-year-old body in the mirror with such radical curiosity and acceptance that I felt teary. It is only really in the third act that the film falters. But with reversed genders, this plot is still dangerously close to Pretty Woman. Is sex work okay just because people don’t feel ashamed of it? Nancy starts off wildly nervous and neurotic, openly anxious that perhaps Leo would like to leave, perhaps she is too old, that she is repulsive to him.

Welcome to Backstage – the film and TV podcast from Sky News. This week Claire Gregory, Katie Spencer and Laura Kramer hear from Paapa Essiedu and Caroline ...

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Thompson plays a retired widow who hires a 20-something sex worker (Daryl McCormack) in this deft and pleasurable two-hander directed by Sophie Hyde.

Nancy, having shared at length about her dull job, duller marriage and disappointing kids, understandably wants to know more about the man she’s paying to sleep with. (The fourth act, in particular, leaves no point unaddressed.) But Hyde stages it all with an unfussy elegance that serves the material, and any lingering creakiness is dispelled by Thompson and McCormack, who always seem to be playing people rather than ideological mouthpieces. If that makes it sound stagy and even didactic — you could certainly imagine it working well as a play — well, the message is a worthy one, and all PSAs should be this pleasurable. In one of the film’s funnier exchanges, she reads from a list of sex acts she wants to try out, like a waiter rattling off the nightly specials. Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack) is a sex worker in his 20s, and while he’s had many clients of varying persuasions and proclivities, he has never encountered one quite like Nancy Stokes (Emma Thompson), the prim, anxious 55-year-old widow who’s booked him for a high-priced session. The long, oddly charming title of “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” is a line of dialogue spoken near the end of this not-too-long and thoroughly charming British comedy.

This week Claire Gregory, Katie Spencer and Laura Kramer hear from Paapa Essiedu and Caroline Quentin as they express their excitement for their new show on ...

Emma Thompson deeply enjoyed making her new Hulu sex comedy Good Luck to You, Leo Grande. But the emphasis on intimacy in the film, which is about an older ...

We have to make this and we have to make it right now,” Thompson said. “It was just two of us, and only us,” she said of her experience with co-star Daryl McCormack. “We had preparation, and we had rehearsal. And then they ended up feeling abused, which is in fact what they were,” she said in an interview with IndieWire ahead of the film’s Hulu premiere on June 17.

In "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande," Emma Thompson plays a retired schoolteacher who's never had good sex in her life — so she decides to do something about ...

"Good Luck to You, Leo Grande" requires a leap on the audience’s part, an acceptance of the inherent theatricality of the premise and a willingness to be romanced and uncomfortable all at once. She is the author of " How TV Can Make You Smarter," and a member of the Television Critics Association and the Chicago Film Critics Association. She is also a producer and co-host for the Podlander Presents network of podcasts. While "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande" could be called a crowdpleaser, it won’t be for everyone. The platform gives fans of entertainment, news and sports an easy way to discover new content that is available completely free. "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande" would make a hell of a play. Consumers can also watch Tubi content on the web at http://www.tubi.tv/. Sense and Sensibility (1995): Other than William Shakespeare, there’s no one more influential on the modern day romantic comedy genre than Jane Austen. And the early 19th century novelist gets one of her best-ever adaptations in this winning romance from director Ang Lee and writer/star Emma Thompson. With its classic story of polar opposite sisters — the reserved, responsible Elinor (Thompson) and the expressive, emotional Marianne ( Kate Winslet) — "Sense and Sensibility" basically delivers two rom-com storylines in one. But as Nancy’s tension eases, Hyde draws nearer, essentially granting the audience a front-row seat to watch Thompson do her thing while at the top of her game. Yet long before those ripples skim across Leo’s surface, McCormack’s contribution to the film is still every bit as vital as Thompson’s. It’s the quality of his attention, an awareness that seems to extend beyond Nancy and right through the screen. And so Nancy sets out on her journey of self-discovery, but the more time she spends with Leo, the more she wants to peer beneath the sophisticated veneer he presents. When a film’s locus is limited in this way, it’s often the result of translation — what was once a play makes the leap to the screen without altering its small scale, for better or worse (or both). But "Leo Grande" didn’t begin life as a play. It has been expanded and republished in light of the film's premiere on Hulu.

The 63-year-old British actress discussed getting nude for her latest film and was critical of body dysmorphia on Thursday during a visit on Late Night With ...

With temperatures peaking today, we're in the market for some footwear that feel and look cool and this style are an essential. And when you do maps of your body like that, it just becomes the thing that you can accept and you can look at with a neutral gaze and you're not just always looking in the mirror and going, "That's just wrong. 'And we all, we just took our clothes off and we did it bit by bit and looked at our bodies and said, '"Well, I don't like this bit, because, well, I've got a scar here.'' And then we drew around them and wrote on them. Body image: 'No. Stop it, everyone. 'I know what I'm going to do. And then they'll walk away, but not looking down, no looking down.

Emma Thompson talked to Stephen Colbert about upcoming movie "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande," filming nude scenes, and poor body image.

This is your vessel, it's your house, it's where you live, there's no point in judging it, absolutely no point, but it's very hard to do," she said. I know we laugh, but you think of all those eight-year-olds out there going 'I don't like my thighs.'" For many of us, our relationship to our body is a complicated one.

Actress Emma Thompson revealed that going nude while playing Nancy Stokes in her new film "Good Luck To You, Leo Grande" was very difficult.

You better be different,” she said in The New York Times interview. “So if you want the world to change, and you want the iconography of the female body to change, then you better be a part of the change. But beautiful in a way any human is beautiful and acceptable.” She went on to explain that she wanted her character, Nancy, to look at her body with a “neutral gaze” like “she was looking at her body for the first time.” If you believe you are struggling with an eating disorder and need support, call the National Eating Disorders Association helpline at (800) 931-2237. She admitted to trying many different diets, including starving herself, but found it eventually to be “absurd.” She told Colbert if she could go back to talk to her 14-year-old self, she would say, “Don’t waste your time. “I certainly can’t stand in front of a mirror without trying to improve the way I look. “The film would not be the same without it,” she said in the interview. And, crikey, you are constantly told what kind of body to have,” she said. I do ‘cerebral.’ And I have also never conformed to the shape or look of someone they may want to see naked,” she said in the interview. And yet, of course, the age that I am makes it extremely challenging because we aren’t used to seeing untreated bodies on the screen.” Thompson continued, “When I stood there naked, and it’s not like made beautiful by lighting…it’s literally just plain.

All of my preconceived ideas of what intimacy looks like kind of shattered,” says the 29-year-old Irish actor of his career-making turn as sex worker Leo ...

Addressing her companion—a 20-something man in possession of double-take good looks—he reads from a to-do list. In turn, we learn about the weight the seemingly supremely confident Leo carries too. In an anonymous city-center hotel room, a late middle-aged woman, businesslike in prim pencil skirt and blouse, takes a piece of paper from her handbag.