Emma Thompson
Dame Emma Thompson (born April 15, 1959) is a British actress and screenwriter. Her work spans over four decades of screen and stage, and her accolades include two Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award. In 2018, she was made a dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to drama. Born to actors Eric Thompson and Phyllida Law, Thompson was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she became a member of the Footlights troupe and appeared in the comedy sketch series Alfresco (1983–1984). In 1985, she starred in the West End revival of the musical Me and My Girl, which was a breakthrough in her career. In 1987, she became famous for her performances in two BBC series, Tutti Frutti and Fortunes of War, winning the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for her work on both series. In the early 1990s, she often collaborated with then-husband, actor and director Kenneth Branagh in films such as 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 performance in the Merchant-Ivory period drama Howards End (1992). In 1993, she received two Academy Award nominations—Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress—for the respective roles of the housekeeper of a grand household in The Remains of the Day and a lawyer in In the Name of the Father, becoming one of the few actors to achieve this feat. Thompson wrote and starred in Sense and Sensibility (1995), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay—making her the only person in history to win Oscars for both acting and writing—and once again won the BAFTA. Further critical acclaim 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). Other notable film credits include the Harry Potter series (2004–2011), Nanny McPhee (2005), Stranger than Fiction (2006), An Education (2009), Men in Black 3 (2012) and the spin-off Men in Black: International (2019), Brave (2012), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Cruella (2021), and Matilda the Musical (2022). Her television credits include Wit (2001), Angels in America (2003), The Song of Lunch (2010), King Lear (2018) and Years and Years (2019). She portrayed Mrs. Lovett in a Lincoln Center production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in 2014. Authorised by the publishers of Beatrix Potter, Thompson has also written three Peter Rabbit children's books.
151 acting credits
Acting · 151
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
1962
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
2014
Late Night with Seth Meyers
2014
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
2015
The Graham Norton Show
2007
The Kelly Clarkson Show
2019
The Sheep Detectives
2026
Saturday Night Live
1975
Cheers
1982
The View
1997
QI
2003
LIVE with Kelly and Mark
1988
Leute heute
1997
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
2003
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
1993
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
2004
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
1992
Ellen
1994
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
2011
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
2007
Wetten, dass..?
1981
Brave
2012
Screen Two
1985
The Oscars
1953
The Tony Danza Show
2004
The Jonathan Ross Show
2011
The Young Ones
1982
GMTV
1993
The Comic Strip Presents...
1982
Cruella
2021
I Am Legend
2007
Beauty and the Beast
2017
Playhouse Presents
2012
Parkinson
1998
Friday Night with Jonathan Ross
2001
Treasure Planet
2002
Men in Black 3
2012
Love Actually
2003
Dolittle
2020
Men in Black: International
2019
Timeshift
2002
Down Cemetery Road
2025
Sense and Sensibility
1995
Years and Years
2019
Dead of Winter
2025
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
2022
Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang
2010
Nanny McPhee
2005
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
2025
Angels in America
2003
Johnny English Strikes Again
2018
Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
2022
Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical
2022
Burnt
2015
The Remains of the Day
1993
Beautiful Creatures
2013
Fortunes of War
1987
In the Name of the Father
1993
Stranger Than Fiction
2006
Last Christmas
2019
Bridget Jones's Baby
2016
Howards End
1992
Missing Link
2019
Junior
1994
Much Ado About Nothing
1993
The Boat That Rocked
2009
Saving Mr. Banks
2013
An Education
2009
Beyond Boundaries: The Harvey Weinstein Scandal
2018
Dead Again
1991
Primary Colors
1998
Sucré salé
2002
Everybody to Kenmure Street
2026
Henry V
1989
E! True Hollywood Story
1996
King Lear
2018
Brideshead Revisited
2008
My Father the Hero
1994
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
2017
Alfresco
1983
Men, Women & Children
2014
A Walk in the Woods
2015
The Val Doonican Music Show
1977
Friday Night, Saturday Morning
1979
Late Night
2019
What's Love Got to Do with It?
2023
The Children Act
2018
Wit
2001
Tutti Frutti
1987
Funny Valentines
2015
Last Chance Harvey
2008
Effie Gray
2014
Nos Bastidores de Hollywood
2005
Thompson
1988
When Harry Left Hogwarts
2011
There's Nothing to Worry About!
1982
Alone in Berlin
2016
Peter's Friends
1992
How to Build a Girl
2020
The Tall Guy
1989
Judas Kiss
1998
Carrington
1995
Hannibal Hopkins & Sir Anthony
2021
Junket Whore
1998
The Love Punch
2014
An Audience with Adele
2021
The Crystal Cube
1983
Impromptu
1991
Merchant Ivory
2024
The Winter Guest
1997
Maybe Baby
2000
The Laughter & Secrets of Love Actually: 20 Years Later – A Diane Sawyer Special
2022
Bad Tidings
2024
Imagining Argentina
2003
Love & Loyalty: The Making of 'The Remains of the Day'
2001
The Legend of Barney Thomson
2015
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
2014
The Remains of the Day: The Filmmaker's Journey
2001
Stephen Fry: 50 Not Out
2007
Sea Sorrow
2017
Royal Variety Performance 1984
1984
Hospital!
1997
Slags
1984
Fry and Laurie Reunited
2010
Extinction
2019
The Real Mary Poppins
2014
Blind Loyalty, Hollow Honor: England's Fatal Flaw
2001
The Cellar Tapes
1982
The Song of Lunch
2010
The Fringe, Fame and Me
2022
Walking the Dogs
2012
A Tribute To Ismail Merchant
2005
The Winslow Boy
1989
Greenpeace: There's a Rang-Tan in My Bedroom
2018
James Ivory: In Search of Love and Beauty
—
The Blue Boy
1994
Tin Fish
1990
Look Back in Anger
1989
Hear Me Roar
—
Colleagues From Hell
1989
How to Stop a Nuclear War
—
To the Ends of the Earth
2016
Rabbit Ears - The White Cat
1991
The Doubt Machine: Inside the Koch Brothers' War on Climate Science
2016
Sainsbury's: Mog's Christmas Calamity
2015
Elegance & Simplicity: The Wardrobe of Sense & Sensibility
2009
A Very Quiet Man
2009
Hollywood's Dark Secret
2019
A Sense of Character
2009
Die vielen Gesichter der Emma Thompson
2016
Locating the World of Sense & Sensibility
2009