Emma Thomspsons gay relatives were the reason she rejected Christianity
Emma Thompson is just a goddess. Is there anyone who really has strong feelings against her? No. Even if Emma isn’t your particular cup of Earl Grey, surely you can admit that she’s much cooler and more interesting than the average movie star. Anyway, Emma has a wonderful new interview in The Advocate to promote Saving Mr. Banks. I’ve never thought of Emma as particular active in gay rights work, but as it turns out, she feels very strongly about it. You can read the full Advocate piece here and here are some highlights:
On not wanting to shake PL Travers’ snippy attitude: “Oh, I didn’t try to shake it, darling. It was so much fun I thought I’d adopt it for the rest of my life. You can be honest about everything and say, “No, I don’t want to come to your f–king party — and I’m not sending you a bloody Christmas card either!” It’s bliss.”
Travers may have been bisexual, but that wasn’t included in the film: “Sure. She was what I would call a real searcher. I don’t know whether they were lovers or not, but she did live with Madge for a long, long time, and she certainly had very complex, passionate relationships with both women and men. She was an explorer of her own condition, and very possibly her own sexuality… You can’t fit everything about a person’s life into two hours. Like when we made Carrington, which did address homosexuality, we didn’t include stuff about Dora Carrington’s relationships with women because it would’ve looked like she’d literally gone bed-hopping her entire life. Besides, Saving Mr. Banks is about a woman’s creative, artistic life. It’s a relief, quite frankly, because when is a movie about a woman not about her love life?”
The Crone Period: “At this particular moment in time, the last thing on Mrs. Travers’s mind is her erotic life, but she did divide the life of women into three main parts: nymph, mother, and crone. When she went to Los Angeles to meet with Walt Disney, she was definitely in the crone period, which she felt was the best patch because you were free to do what you liked and still had energy to do it. She was actually older than I played her — we all had long conversations about it, because I could’ve easily played her more elderly with prosthetics and padding — but I was interested in making sure the audience realized that this woman did have an erotic life, and that it could still be a part of her life, but she had chosen to live alone. It didn’t occur to her to find someone to pay for her house or her bills. She was completely independent, and it was her independence that, in the end, forced her to give up her character, Mary Poppins, for adaptation.”
She’s never played a “proper” lesbian: “Nobody’s come up with a really interesting one for me yet, but I’m sure they will… I don’t take jobs to alter public perception about myself, which seems to me a high road to nothing — and rather unattractively self-involved. I’m interested in doing work that’s well written, fascinating, and true…”
Feeling a connection to the LGBT community: “I always have, perhaps because I’ve always felt like an outsider. I believe that actors and anyone in the arts should be outsiders, so that we can say whatever we want and hold a mirror up, as Shakespeare says, to what’s really going on in the world. We shouldn’t be within the pale of polite society. It’s a disaster that actors have become so respectable.”
Her gay influences, a gay uncle and two gay godfathers: “Yes, I was brought up, partially, by these remarkable, intelligent, wonderful men, and they made me consider and question all moral systems from a very young age. They were the reason I rejected Christianity outright, because it said that homosexuality wasn’t allowed. I thought, That’s ridiculous! It’s perfectly normal, so what do you mean it isn’t allowed?”
Her loyal gay following: “Oh, and I love it. It’s a source of great pride and happiness. That support is very supportive, and my support in return is so profound and real.”
On Hugh Grant describing her as a “bloke”: “Well, I find that terrifically difficult stuff. Look, in a sense, he was trying to express approval, but what’s wrong with being feminine? What is he actually saying? The problem is that men have extreme difficulty with powerful women, who will immediately be dubbed masculine. I don’t accept that. Yes, I’m a powerful woman, but I don’t think I’m like a man at all. I don’t want to be a man. It’s not something that any person of my gender would wish, whether lesbian or straight. We’re women. I want to be allowed to be a powerful woman without being told that means I’m like a man.”
Fantasy lady hookups: “After full-on snogging Meryl Streep in Angels in America, where do you go from there? We practically had sex, for God’s sake. [Laughs] Oh, there are so many beautiful women… Well, I met Sandy Bullock at an awards thing a couple years ago, and she said to me, “If I were gay, you’d be the one.” I said, “I’m there!””
I find her answer about being called a “bloke” to be very interesting, mostly because that’s something people say about me too – I’ve been told I have a dude’s sense of humor, that I write, talk and think like a man. I don’t really think much of it – like, it’s not a compliment or an insult, I guess people just think my soul is rather butch. I consider myself feminine and I don’t actually want to be a man either, like Emma.
Also, I had no idea she “rejected Christianity outright.” Emma is such an interesting person.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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