Holla if you love some Emma Thompson! God, I love her so much. She’s one of my heroes, no joke. Smart, funny, interesting, a humanitarian, a writer and actress, all of that and she’s in a solid marriage (with Greg Wise, who is HOT). Plus, she just looks fantastic. She’s 53 years old, she loves a glass of wine and LOOK AT HER SKIN!! She has beautiful skin, and she’s not Botox-ing or filler-ing or anything. I love her.

These photos are from outside the ITV studios, where Emma was making an appearance on a UK show. I got excited for a second because I thought she might have a new movie coming out, but it seems that her latest project is something very, very different. She was contacted by a publisher to write a new Peter Rabbit/Beatrix Potter story. Here’s more:

In the summer of 2010, the Oscar-winning actress and writer Emma Thompson received an intriguing package in the post. Inside was a small cardboard box with a half-eaten radish leaf and a letter from Peter Rabbit. The letter said Thompson’s “certain mischievous twinkle” in her eye made her the perfect person to write another adventure for the rabbit – a sequel to Beatrix Potter’s beloved children’s story.

“It was such a witty invitation,” Thompson tells me, “and it was very clever because in a sense I was completely tricked.” She laughs in that familiar warm and spontaneous way. If Frederick Warne,” – the publisher of the Peter Rabbit stories – “had sent some official letter I would have said don’t be ridiculous, I can’t think of anything I want to do less than step into the footsteps of a genius like Potter.” But the publisher’s sweetly cunning ploy worked, and next week sees the publication of The Further Tale of Peter Rabbit by Emma Thompson, published for the 110th anniversary of the book’s original publication.

The story has a nice symmetry with the way in which Beatrix Potter first created her animal stories. In September 1893 Potter heard that Noel Moore, the young son of her ex-governess, was unwell. To cheer him up she sent him a letter with the story of Peter Rabbit who, unlike his goody-goody siblings Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail, disobeys his mother and breaks into Mr McGregor’s garden. Potter also included charming sketches that she later coloured-in for the 1902 published version. She honed her skills through drawing insects and mushrooms and had even submitted a scientific paper to the Linnean Society (it was rejected because she was a woman).

Thompson is attracted to the darkness in Potter’s stories. “Some of them are profoundly unsettling,” Thompson tells me, “and of course those were my favourites when I grew up.” When Mr McGregor chases Peter Rabbit there is the real danger he will share his father’s fate – being baked in a pie for the farmer’s table.

“When I was doing Nanny McPhee,” says Thompson, referring to the two hugely successful films she wrote and starred in, “people would say: but there’s death and there’s divorce and there’s disappointment. But children more than anyone instinctively know that life is full of danger.” She adds: “I’m sure if you asked Jo Rowling, she’d say the same thing.”

In this respect (and others), Thompson takes inspiration from her father, Eric, who wrote and narrated The Magic Roundabout television series. “He would say, ‘please don’t say I’m writing for children’,” she recalls with passion. “It’s patronising to write for children as though they came from another planet. Dad said he wrote to please himself.”

In the same way, she says, “Potter didn’t write for children, she wrote for everyone.” She insists her Nanny McPhee films and The Further Tale of Peter Rabbit are not exclusively for children. “This separation of us all out into camps according to our age or our sex is depressing. I don’t think it’s culturally healthy.”

Thompson’s father read her the Beatrix Potter books when she was a child, and her new book resonates with her childhood visits to Scotland. The Further Tale, like the original, finds Peter Rabbit squeezing under the gate into Mr McGregor’s garden.

He then hops into a basket covered with a tartan picnic cloth, eats the cheese and pickle sandwich inside, and promptly falls asleep. When he wakes up he finds that Mr and Mrs McGregor have taken him up the High Road. There he meets a huge black rabbit called Finlay McBurney who turns out to be his cousin.

“I thought that Potter had been so influenced by Scotland as a child,” says Thompson, “so it seemed right that he should visit.” It’s also a homage to the Scottish side of her family and – once more – her father: Eric wrote a book based on The Magic Roundabout characters called Dougal’s Scottish Holiday.

[From The Telegraph]

Well, Emma has gone a long way in explaining the frankly terrifying London Olympics Opening Ceremony, right? “Children more than anyone instinctively know that life is full of danger.” I mean… I think that’s debatable. Obviously, when you’re talking about Beatrix Potter or JK Rowling, I think you’re talking about a certain level of scariness and thrills. But, as with everything, there are limits. You don’t want kids to see a lot of gore or anything truly terrifying. But! I did like this: “This separation of us all out into camps according to our age or our sex is depressing. I don’t think it’s culturally healthy.” She’s amazing.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

Dear Emma Thompson,

WTF? Are you poor?

Love, K

So, this is the new trailer for the completely unnecessary third installment for Men In Black. To my recollection, MIB II wasn’t even a hit… let me check that out… it did decent business, better than I thought, but it was by no means a super-successful sequel. So why do yet another MIB film? Because Hollywood has run out of ideas? Sidenote: I’m not a big fan of saying “Hollywood has run out of ideas” because I don’t think they have – I think there are a lot of extremely talented storytellers who work in Hollywood, people who would make wonderful, interesting, creative films if only the studios would fund those projects. But studios won’t fund those projects because the studios worry that no one will go see those kinds of films. The studio thinks you’re stupid. And sometimes, you prove them right.

So, anyway. MIB III. Will Smith seems like he’s carrying this bitch, and even then, he might be phoning some of it in. I feel for Tommy Lee Jones, that old bastard. He must have wanted a nice paycheck too. As for Emma Thompson and Josh Brolin… I don’t even know. Emma’s not poor, and neither is Josh. Josh seems like the kind of actor more likely to just sign on to something because it looks fun, which maybe this did…? But Emma… I expected more from her.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Yes, I realize that it’s a slow gossip day! That’s why I have the time to write about one of my favorites, Ms. Emma Thompson, and her love of the English language. Emma loves language so much she wants to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant. She wants to have babies with good diction. She wants to ride literacy into it’s begging her to stop.

Anyhoodles (Emma would hate that), Emma recently went back to her old school and all of the kids were saying things like, “Like, totally, ain’t it, dur?” This angered Emma. And she spoke about her, like, anger in a recent interview, you know, like, totally:

As Nanny McPhee, she had few problems getting wayward children to fall into line. And Emma Thompson no doubt wishes she had a few of her character’s magical powers to tackle her latest bugbear: the sloppy English used by the youth of today.

The Cambridge-educated actress, famed for her plummy tones, said the failure of many children to speak properly drove her ‘insane’. She said: ‘We have to reinvest, I think, in the idea of articulacy as a form of personal human freedom and power. I went to give a talk at my old school and the girls were all doing their “likes” and “innits?” and “it ain’ts”, which drives me insane. I told them, “Just don’t do it. Because it makes you sound stupid and you’re not stupid”.’

She went on: ‘There is the necessity to have two languages – one you use with your mates and the other that you need in an official capacity. Or you’re going to sound like a nob.’

The double Oscar-winner, 51, argued that while it had long been common for teenagers to have their own style and way of speaking among their friends, some were now using the same style of speech regardless of whether it was appropriate for the situation.

The Sense And Sensibility star attended Camden School for Girls in North London, which has a list of alumni that includes Sara Brown, Arabella Weir and Geri Halliwell.

She told Radio Times: ‘There is the necessity to have two languages – one that you use with your mates and the other that you need in any official capacity.’

Research published earlier this year revealed that some teenagers are becoming unemployable because they limit themselves to a working vocabulary of only 800 words.
Although they could often understand thousands of words, they restricted themselves to a linguistic range mainly consisting of made-up words and ‘teenspeak’ – which has developed through modern communication methods such as text messaging and social networking sites.

Communications expert Jean Gross warned: ‘We need to help today’s teenagers understand the difference between their textspeak and the formal language they need to succeed in life – 800 words will not get you a job.’

Tony McEnery, a professor of linguistics at Lancaster University, analysed 10million words of transcribed speech and 100,000 words gathered from teenagers’ blogs.

He found that the top 20 words used by teenagers, including ‘yeah’, ‘no’ and ‘but’, account for about a third of all words used. Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy has also raised concerns about the ‘woefully low standard’ in schools, which is a cause for concern for employers.

[From The Daily Mail]

This is, like, a worthy cause. Okay, I’ll stop! I use “like” and “you know” and “I mean” way too much. In my defense, however, I know WAY more than 800 words, and I read and write all the time. I totally understand why Emma is pissed off, though. I hear teenagers sometimes and their conversations give me a headache. Emma should take them on, personally. And then she come to my house and personally give me a beat down for my conversational and writing crutches. You know? Like, I mean, come on!

Yesterday, Emma Thompson finally got her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame! Yay! Who knew that it takes two Oscars and, like, 20-some years of being a movie star to make it happen? Actually, I think celebrities have to pay for their own stars now, so it’s likely that whatever studio is promoting Nanny McPhee was all “We’ll cough up the money for promotion.” Emma looked stunning (for her), and she brought along some friends for her big day: her Nanny McPhee costar Maggie Gyllenhaal, Emma’s ex-boyfriend and friend of 30-odd years, Hugh Laurie (more on him in a moment), and a lovely little piglet. The piglet stole the show! I love how Emma has taken to bringing a pig with her everywhere lately. She did at a premiere last year too.

Anyway, as part of her promotion for Nanny McPhee, Emma gave an extensive interview to The Hollywood Reporter this week (story via The Daily Mail), and she discussed in detail her work on the new adaptation of Pygmalion/My Fair Lady. Emma is adapting a new script, basically from scratch, with Carey Mulligan likely to star as Eliza Doolittle. Surprisingly, Emma has very little love for My Fair Lady in general, and Audrey Hepburn in particular. Emma describes Audrey as “fantastically twee” and “She can’t sing and she can’t really act, I’m afraid.” Oh, snap! If it was anyone else, Emma, I might be ripping you a new one:

She may be considered a screen and style icon, but Audrey Hepburn doesn’t have a fan in Emma Thompson. The Nanny McPhee star has describe the Old Hollywood actress as ‘mumsy’ and ‘twee’.

The Oscar-winner’s cutting remarks are published on the day she is honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In interviews with both The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety, the 51-year-old says the My Fair Lady star was not ‘a very good actress.’

Thompson – who is writing a new movie version of the hit musical – says she wasn’t a big fan of the 1964 film that starred Hepburn and Rex Harrison.

‘I’m not hugely fond of the film,’ she says. ‘I find Audrey Hepburn fantastically twee.’

When asked by The Hollywood Reporter what ‘twee’ means, Thompson says: ‘Twee is whimsy without wit. It is mimsy-mumsy sweetness without any kind of bite. And that’s not for me. She can’t sing and she can’t really act, I’m afraid. I’m sure she was a delightful woman – and perhaps if I had known her I would have enjoyed her acting more, but I don’t and I didn’t, so that’s all there is to it really.’

Hepburn – who died in 1993 – has long been considered a Hollywood icon. The Breakfast at Tiffany’s actress won an Oscar for her starring role in the 1953 film, Roman Holiday. She also played Eliza Doolittle in the 1964 movie version of My Fair Lady. But the actress’s voice was dubbed over and she is not heard singing the musical’s most classic songs such as I Could Have Danced All Night and The Rain in Spain. The voice of American singer Marni Nixon is heard instead.

Thompson says she is ‘thrilled’ to be writing a new version of the musical but she admits she doesn’t like the original movie and prefers Pygmalion – the George Bernard Shaw play upon which My Fair Lady was based.

In an interview with Daily Variety, she says: ‘I find it chocolate-boxy, clunky and deeply theatrical. I don’t think that it’s a film. It’s the theatre piece put onto film. It was Cecil Beaton’s designs and Rex Harrison that gave it its extraordinary quality. I don’t do Audrey Hepburn. I think that she’s a guy thing.’

‘I’m sure she was this charming lady, but I didn’t think she was a very good actress. It’s high time that the extraordinary role of Eliza was reinterpreted because it’s a very fantastic part for a woman.’

Thompson also doesn’t like the way Eliza Doolittle was portrayed in the film, a part she hopes Brit actress Carey Mulligan will play. It is the story of a working class flower seller who is taken in by posh phonetics professor, Henry Higgins. Higgins bets he can train her to speak in an upper-class accent in a bid to pass her off as a lady in society circles.

Thompson says: ‘The central relationship between Eliza and Higgins is a fascinating one.’

She calls him ‘dysfunctional’ and even accuses Doolittle’s father, dustman Alfred as selling his daughter into slavery.

‘He’s more brutal,’ says Thompson who admits to being a feminist. ‘It’s a very terrible thing he does, selling his daughter into sexual slavery for a fiver. I suppose my cheekiness is in saying: “This is a very serious story about the usage of women at a particular time in our history. And it’s still going on today. Yes, OK, it’s a wonderful musical, but let’s also look at what it’s really saying about the world.”’

Thompson also admits that fans of the 1964 Oscar-winning film may not like the new version.

‘Fans of the original won’t want another one to be made – and honestly, one has to just cope with that,’ she says. ‘[The original is] incredibly long. The audience can expect less songs.’

Thompson also speaks about her battle with depression in the interviews. After doing a ‘big performance’ she says: ‘I have to go and be sponged down in a darkened room for a couple of weeks. I do have a lot of weakness.’

One thing she does love is writing. Thompson reveals that her biggest inspiration for the Nanny McPhee films is Westerns. Likening the British nanny to Clint Eastwood, she says: ‘The stories are kind of based on Westerns that I grew up watching with my father – everything from High Chaparral to The Virginian. Stuff like that. There’s something in Nanny McPhee that I imbibed from Clint Eastwood and his ilk. Nanny is sort of Shane, really. She’s this mysterious stranger who rides in from out of town, changes everything using rather unorthodox methods to resolve conflict and then must leave.’

[From The Daily Mail]

Eh, personally I think Emma is wrong about Audrey in general and in My Fair Lady in particular. Have you ever gone back and watched My Fair Lady? Audrey is very lovely and I think she’s very underrated in the part. When it was a stage musical, Eliza was played by Julie Andrews, and when Hollywood got their hands on it, they shoved Audrey in the role, and you can tell she really worked at doing the accents and everything. But I do understand what Emma is trying to say about the money and slavery and all – I hate Eliza’s father in the film, and he does sell his daughter.

Back to Emma and Hugh Laurie – so, they used to date, forever ago. And Emma’s husband Greg Wise wasn’t at the event, so maybe Hugh had his ex all to himself? Do you think Emma and Hugh still get hot for each other? I’m kind of thinking they do. Because look at their body language. And because, even though I could swear to it, I think something is happening in Hugh’s pants. I just… oh, Hugh. I love him. And I think this man is laying some serious pipe.

Emma, Hugh, Maggie and the pig on August 6, 2010. Credit: Bauer-Griffin.

Emma Thompson and Maggie Gyllenhaal were the cover girls for the August issue of Good Housekeeping. I saw the issue but I always forgot to check out the interview for some reason. I should have known better – Emma is always a great interview, and she always has sh-t to say. Emma and Maggie are doing promotion for the Nanny McPhee movie, in which Emma revives the character she adapted for the screen. By the way, did you know that both Ralph Fiennes and Ewan McGregor are in the second film? True story. Anyway, through the course of the Good Housekeeping interview, Emma basically blasts the concept of “having it all” – a great family, motherhood, a great career, etc. But Emma is not Gisele. She’s not looking down her nose at us. Instead, she’s saying she’s one of us, and that she has lots of problems too:

She has long juggled her work as an actress with raising a family. But Emma Thompson believes that no woman can have the perfect career and be a faultless mother – at the same time.

The 51-year-old Oscar winner, who has a ten-year-old daughter, said trying to ‘have it all’ rarely works well for anyone in a family. She argued that the only way to manage motherhood and a full-time job was by enlisting hired help, something she insists she won’t do.

Her intervention comes at a time when the idea of ‘having it all’ is under attack from working mothers who find themselves run into the ground as they chase an impossible dream. Even its most ardent cheerleaders such as novelist Fay Weldon are thinking again as they see the effects on family life.

A recent survey by Grazia magazine revealed that one in ten women who has had children wants to give up work completely. The debate was further fuelled by Samantha Cameron, who is expecting a child in September and quit her full time job as creative director of Smythson, where she has worked for 14 years, within days of her husband becoming Prime Minister.

Miss Thompson made the comments in the US edition of Good Housekeeping magazine with actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, with whom she stars in the forthcoming sequel to Nanny Mcphee.

The British actress is married to actor Greg Wise, 44, and in addition to ten-year-old Gaia they adopted a 16-year-old Rwandan refugee named Tindyebwa Agaba, who is now 23.

Speaking to Good Housekeeping, Miss Thompson said: ‘I don’t want your readers ever to think they have to have it all. I think that’s a revolting concept. It’s so false! Sometimes you’ll have some things, and sometimes you’ll have other things. And you do not need it all at once; it’s not good for you. You can’t be a great mum and work the whole time necessarily; those two things aren’t ideal.’

‘We have an awful lot to work on and to debate about in relation to our working lives, because it isn’t working for a lot of people, particularly for a lot of women. The only way you can have it all is by delegating all the running of the home to other people – which I don’t ever want to do… So you do it yourself, and it takes time and energy and effort. And if you give it the time, it’s profoundly enjoyable.’

Miss Thompson added that when she had Gaia at 41 she was still not a ‘grown up’ but the experience has forced her to mature very quickly.

She does not have a regular nanny and she and Wise take turns to work so one is always home with their daughter.

She added: ‘We’re all supposed to be happy all the time. What is that about? Why have we lost contact with the possibility of saying, “Do you know what? I can’t do that. Sorry, I can’t manage that as well.”‘

In the interview Miss Gyllenhaal, who is married to actor Peter Sarsgaard -with whom she has a three-year-old daughter, Romana, told how Miss Thompson had inspired her to put her husband first more in her life.

The 32-year-old said: ‘Emma, you kind of gave me the idea that a part of my life, a part of my mind, has to be devoted to my husband. My mother’s generation has been bucking against that. But I’ve just been finding so much pleasure in sacrificing sometimes for my husband – going to where he’s working and tidying up his trailer because he couldn’t manage to do it, and bringing him things that will make him feel better, and being a wife in a more classical way. It feels really right to me.’

[From The Daily Mail]

As much as I think to myself, “Yeah, if I had Greg Wise at home waiting for me, I would never leave” I totally respect the realistic vision of family life Emma is presenting. I like when moms are honest. I like when anyone is honest, whether it’s Cameron Diaz not playing the “I can’t wait to be have babies!” game and simply acknowledging that she doesn’t feel the need to be a mother, or when it’s Emma saying that the idea of “having it all” is a trap. A trap we design for ourselves, for the most part.

Good Housekeeping cover courtesy of Celebrity Baby Scoop. Also: Emma in NYC on June 10, 2010. Credit: WENN.

Here are some new photos of Jack Nicholson (and Meryl Streep and Mike Nichols) at last night’s big AFI tribute for director Mike Nichols. I love Nichols – he’s done such classics as Carnal Knowledge, Working Girl (a favorite), Postcards From the Edge (sigh, I love that one too), The Graduate, and not-so-classic but still good/great films like Closer, Wit and Charlie Wilson’s War. Nichols is good friends with people like Emma Thompson, Jack, Meryl Streep and many, many others. So the turnout for his tribute was incredible. Look at Jack!

A few weeks ago, a publisher sent me a copy of Hollywood Hellraisers: the Wild Lives and Fast Times of Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholsonby Robert Sellers. It was an extremely easy read, and if it’s your kind of thing, I would recommend it. The book had lots of details about all of those guys’ sex lives and there was a lot of interesting gossip from the 1970s that I was totally unfamiliar with. Like, both Warren and Jack pounced on Ali McGraw when she and Steve McQueen split up, even though Ali’s other ex Robert Evans warned both Jack and Warren that Ali was too vulnerable for their shenanigans. Another interesting story? Allegedly, Jack was all over Nicole Kidman right after her divorce from Tom Cruise. Like, Jack really, really wanted Nicole. I don’t know if that’s true, but it sounds truthy, doesn’t it?

Anyway, look at some of my favorite bitches. Emma is so f-cking gorgeous, even if the dress is a repeat Westwood from last year. And MERYL!!! Love, love, love. Julia Roberts’ dress sucks though.

On those rare occasions when I find something to write about for my beloved Emma Thompson, I always want to begin the post with “I love you I love you I love you Emma Thompson marry me.” Because I would marry her. In a heartbeat. I think we would have a wonderful life together. She and I and her daughter Gaia and this lovely little pig. The pig was Emma’s “date” for the London premiere of Nanny McPhee and The Big Bang. God, I love her. Look how she’s posing with the pig. My guess is that the dress is Vivienne Westwood. I don’t know who dressed the fabulous sow.

Not only is Emma the star of Nanny McPhee, she wrote the screenplay and she’s an executive producer. So who do you think came to her and asked, “Um, how about the pig as your date?” And instead of pulling rank, Emma was like, “A pig? Fabulous.” Of course, she might have been drunk, too. Because she looks kind of drunk in these photos. Not that that’s a bad thing! I would love to be drunk with her. I would imagine it would involve a lot dramatic readings while wearing scarves and a lampshade.

Oh, here’s Emma with husband Greg Wise (swoon!) and daughter Gaia. Gaia is a pretty little thing.

Maggie Gyllenhaal is also in Nanny McPhee, and she was at the premiere. Ralph Fiennes is also in it! Random, right? But Ralph didn’t come to the premiere unfortunately.

Rhys Ifans is also in the film. By the way, when did Rhys Ifans become such a panty-dropper? Is it just the beard? If it’s just the beard, then I hope this man never shaves again. This is a really, really hot look for him, and I’ve never felt anything for him before now.

Emma and the others at the ’Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang’ premiere in London on March 24, 2010. Credit: WENN.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned in an Emma Thompson post that she was one of the many entertainment people who signed the Roman Polanski petition. I didn’t want it to be true, this cruel, cruel cut. The thought of Emma faltering after so many years of being awesome was just too difficult for me to face. Now it looks like I can love my Emma once again – because she’s asking to have her name removed from the petition. According to Jezebel (linked from LaineyGossip), when Emma gave a scheduled speech at Exeter University a few nights ago, she was challenged (politely) by a student named Caitlin. Caitlin was heartbroken, like many of us, that Emma had signed the petition, so she organized another petition, a “take your name off that other petition, Ms. Thompson” petition. Caitlin got 410 signatures and numerous comments, all of which she brought to the meeting she had set with Emma. Here’s what happened next, according to Caitlin (via Jezebel):

Emma did not have much time between meetings, but she gave me all of the time that she had. I asked her why she had signed the petition, and she explained about how well she knows Polanski, how terrible his life has been, and how forgiving the survivor of the rape all those years ago now is.

She said she thought the intentions of the judge were unclear, as were the intentions of those who arrested him recently. She told me that a lot of her friends had rung her up asking her to sign the petition, so there had been a certain amount of pressure. She said that she had already been thinking a lot about the petition, as others had expressed their dismay at her signing it.

I handed her our petition and the comments. She read them both through thoroughly, and came back to me. She said, while she supported Polanski as a friend, a crime is a crime. I don’t know whether she had realised the extent of Polanski’s crime, but she is now fully aware. She will remove her name from the petition – in fact, she said she would call today and sort it out. Even though, she stressed, Polanski has had some truly terrible experiences in his lifetime, experiences that we couldn’t even imagine and which should not be taken out of the equation, she agreed that she could not put her name to a petition asking for his release.”

Assuming that she will be true to her word, her name will be removed in the very near future. Hopefully the press will pick up on it.

She left me with this, to pass on to everyone who has signed the petition/raised awareness of this issue: “Know that I will remove my name because of you, and all of the good work that you have been doing. I have read your petition. I have heard you. And I will listen.”

[From Jezebel]

While I totally applaud Emma for seeing the error of her ways, and changing her mind with thoughtful grace, I know I’m not really alone in thinking Emma’s reasons for initially signing the damn thing were a bit sketchy. Jezebel points that out too. They sum up celebrity reasoning as: “he’s suffered, he’s charming, the victim wants it dropped, judicial shenanigans, all the cool kids are signing — minus any thought of what he actually did to the victim in 1977, before fleeing the country.” While I think some of those reasons should be factored into what happens to Polanski once he comes back to America, they should not be a factor in people wanting his immediate release. Still, I’m going to give Emma credit – she listened to her critics, weighed her thoughts carefully, and changed her mind, acknowledging her error. That’s more than any other signer has done.

Here’s Emma with Carey Mulligan and Dominic Cooper at the Times BFI London Film Festival’s screening of “An Education” on October 20th. Images thanks to WENN.com .

Every now and then I like to check in and see what my favorite girl Emma Thompson is doing. Quite a lot, as it turns out. I had no idea Emma had a supporting part in the film An Education, which is getting stellar reviews and early Oscar buzz. Emma plays the fierce headmistress of a girl’s school in 1950s England, where Carey Mulligan’s character attends. The NY Times critic compares Emma to Margaret Thatcher… who knew? It would actually be brilliant casting, and I really can see the marquee clearly: “The Iron Lady… starring Emma Thompson as Margaret Thatcher and Hugh Grant as Ronald Reagan.”

Guess what else Emma is up to? She’s written the new adaptation of My Fair Lady/Pygmalion, which will probably be made with Keira Knightley as Eliza Doolittle. And Emma has just finished another Nanny McPhee film, and she’s going to write a Nanny McPhee book! With all of that going on, do you think her decade-plus relationship with her hottie husband Greg Wise is suffering? Not so much. Because Emma has the secrets to a happy relationship:

Emma Thompson wrote about her spectacularly parsimonious husband, Greg Wise, last year, claiming he made “Oliver Cromwell look like Imelda Marcos”. Now, however, the actress has disclosed her tips for a successful marriage.

“Be alert, be appreciative and work hard,” she tells me. “There is no secret, but never allow yourself to just trundle along – that is when problems start. Remember to go out for dinner if you haven’t seen each other all week and make regular dates.”

Thompson, who divorced Kenneth Branagh in 1995, adds: “I’ve had my heart broken so many times and it is the most painful thing in the world, apart from, perhaps, the Gestapo pulling out your finger nails one by one, but you do get over it.”

[From the Telegraph]

God, I love her. I love everything about her. I love her beautiful words. I want to marry her. I wish she and I had regular dates. Also – I want to know who would dare break my Emma’s heart! I know she’s probably talking about Kenneth Branagh mostly, but Emma also dated Hugh Laurie. And I think she also dated Stephen Fry at one point, maybe. If Hugh broke her heart, that might be enough for me to stop watching House, I swear to God.

Here’s Emma and her husband Greg Wise (on the hay) the London premiere of ‘Morris: A Life With Bells On’ on September 24, 2009. Emma is seen above (with that fabulous hat) at the same premiere.

Emma Thompson and Tindyebwa Agaba in 2008. Credit: Getty Images

I would totally go lesbian for Emma Thompson twenty times over. I love that woman so much, and it seems like every story I read about her, every interview I read with her, every film I watch with her, I just love her more and more. Put Gerard Butler, George Clooney, Daniel Craig, Angelina Jolie, Clive Owen, and Emma Thompson in front of me, and I’m going to go all geeky, obsessed, insane, frothing-at-the-mouth fangirl crazy on Emma, and only Emma. Well, I might give Clive the side-eye, but my heart would still belong to Emma.

This latest story about her just confirms my decades-long belief that she’s a goddess-empress in desperate need of a queendom. And I shall be her most loyal supplicant! Emma and her hottie husband Greg Wise informally adopted a teenage Rwandan refugee six years ago. Tindyebwa “Tindy” Agaba had been a child soldier during the Rwandan civil war, and it is believed that his birth mother and father, as well as his sister, are all dead. He had been brought to England with Care International, and Emma and Greg met him in 2003, at a Refugee Council party. What started out as a loose friendship between Emma’s family and Tindy grew into a family situation quickly. And Tindy wanted his “adopted” mom, dad, and little sister at his graduation (with honors) from Exeter University:

Six years ago she saved him from a life of unimaginable hardship, as a child soldier in war-torn Rwanda. And yesterday Emma Thompson beamed with pride as she watched her adopted African son graduate from university.

Wearing a cream suit and green satin jacket, the 50-year-old actress wrapped her arm around Tindyebwa Agaba as he clutched his ribbon-tied scroll. And along with Miss Thompson’s husband Greg Wise, the family proudly posed for the student’s official graduation photo.

Dressed in a traditional black cloak and mortarboard, 22-year-old Tindyebwa grinned with delight as Exeter University Chancellor Floella Benjamin presented him with his 2.1 honours degree in politics.

‘I admit I found my first year very difficult, the second year was less difficult and the third year was an absolute blast,’ he said after the ceremony.

‘So in a nutshell I’ve been from hell to heaven in three years.’

Miss Thompson and Mr Wise met Tindyebwa, known as Tindy for short, at a Refugee Council party in 2003, when he was 16 years old.

His father had died from AIDS when he was just nine and his mother and sister were listed as missing during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, having probably been abducted and raped by soldiers. Tindy was forced to serve as a child soldier, but charity Care International eventually helped him flee to Britain, where he met his adoptive parents.

‘He didn’t have much English, but we just got talking,’ Miss Thompson has previously said. ‘His experience had been awful and when he finally got to Britain after tremendous suffering, he told us the authorities didn’t believe him.’

‘He spent two nights sleeping rough before they finally did. It was the only time he considered suicide. He’s such a lovely, enchanting boy, so I said “Come and spend Christmas with us”. And he came for half the day. Slowly he became a permanent fixture, went on holidays with us and became part of the family.’

Adopting Tindy also helped the actress, who had tried and failed to have more children after undergoing IVF to conceive daughter Gaia, now eight years old. Wise has described the process as ‘brutal’ and admitted it left him requiring therapy.

‘You try your hardest and, if it doesn’t work, it’s not your fault,’ he said.

After learning to speak English, Tindy studied GCSEs and A-levels before winning a place at Exeter University. He said he chose Exeter because his surrogate family had told him of the ‘stunning beauty there, where they shot Sense And Sensibility’ – the 1995 film on which Miss Thompson met her 43-year-old husband.

From September, Tindy plans to attend London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, where he will study for a Masters Degree in Human Rights Law.

[From The Daily Mail]

My love for Emma is enough to sustain me, but how incredible is Greg Wise? I love a man who’s secure enough to speak openly about the struggles he and his wife had with conceiving. Last year, there were rumors that Tindy might be deported back to Rwanda, that his application for residency might be denied. Fortunately, it’s said that Emma and Greg fought hard through the courts to keep Tindy in England, and his application for was granted. I hope Tindy continues on with his studies at law school, and becomes the best human rights lawyer ever!