
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