Just know that I almost made this into a “Who would you rather?” post between Pierce Brosnan and Emma Thompson. But the truth is, I would totally bang Emma. Emma is one of my favorite people in the world. Emma and Pierce were at TIFF to promote their new film, The Love Punch. I don’t know much about the movie other than they play “a divorced couple undertaking a crime caper to right financial wrongs done to them in their retirement fund.” Sounds entertaining. Am I the only one who kind of wishes Emma would do more costume dramas? She’s really great in costume dramas. Sigh. LOVE HER. Anyway, Emma was in full movie-shilling mode at TIFF, because she believes that actors should always promote the hell out of their movies. She explained her reasoning to The Telegraph:

Actress Emma Thompson has given a younger generation a masterclass in selling their films, as she claims some of the new generation are “a bit snobby” about putting in the hard work of publicity. Thompson, who appeared at the premiere of The Love Punch at the Toronto Film Festival last night, said she believed actors ought to “bang the drum” for their own films and encourage audiences to pay to see them.

Saying some younger actors nowadays felt they are “above this”, she went on to give a masterclass in larking about for the camera. Posing happily with fans, the 54-year-old actress adopted a range of outlandish poses as she signed autographs and gave interviews. At one point, she was photographed swigging from what appeared to be a Grey Goose vodka bottle along with co-star Piers Brosnan. The good-natured actress went on to dance her way down the red carpet before appearing at a press conference to share the secret of her success.

When asked why she felt so comfortable in front of the camera, Thompson told an audience she believed the relationship between actors and the press was “important”. Saying she believed some young actors are “a bit snobby about doing press” and thought they were “above it”, she advocated her peers to publicly get behind their own films.

She added she would always tell young actors to imagine their Hollywood blockbuster was their first performance at the Edinburgh festival.

“You go up the Royal Mile with a drum and you bang that drum and you say, ‘I’m in this show,” she said. “It’s really good, come and see it.’ That’s what you do. And if you don’t do that, no one will come and see your show because there are a million shows and there are a lot of people who are better than you. So you better get out on that street with that drum.”

She added: “Explain why you love your show. Say why you think it’s good. Be behind it . . . And if you can’t be behind it,. don’t do work you don’t believe in. This is a job. Make it fun. Make it fun for other people, make it fun for yourself.” She added she felt “passionate” and “very strongly” about the issue.

[From The Telegraph]

She SO right. I get so tired of reading celebrity interviews where actors just seem so grumpy promoting their work. Granted, we the public now expect actors to give more of their private lives away to promote their movies, but there IS a way to balance the personal issues with the movie promotion. Look at Channing Tatum, for the love of God. Emma also told the Toronto Sun that she loved her movie because it had a happy ending:

“It was so much fun… I’m fascinated by the fact that, at the moment, we don’t seem to make films that are designed to make us happy from the beginning to the end,” Thompson said.

She cited the TIFF line-up, with “lots of very, very dark films,” as an example of the trend. “We always have to go on some journey or other,” Thompson continued. “In the ‘olden days’ we didn’t have to do that. Sometimes actors were required to entertain and make people happy for the sake of that. And it’s something that we’ve slightly lost.”

Thompson feels slightly guilty that she got paid to co-star with her friend Brosnan in The Love Punch, which was filmed entirely in France. “It was the best summer ever for us,” Thompson enthused.

The locations included Coye-la-Foret in Oise north of Paris. Coincidentally, part of the 1957 Hollywood movie Funny Face, starring Audrey Hepburn, was also filmed in Oise. In another coincidence, [director] Hopkins happened to compare Thompson’s charming comedy chops to that of the late but legendary Hepburn. That, in turn led to a Thompson quips: “I could probably fit her inside one of my bra cups,” she said of the waif-like Hepburn.

One thing Hepburn always needed was on-screen chemistry with co-stars. For Thompson in The Love Punch, that chemistry was instant with Brosnan. It helps, of course, that he had been eager for years to work with her.

“I absolutely adore Emma,” Brosnan said Thursday. “She makes me feel happy and she makes me feel like a great actor in her presence. She is so generous as a woman, as an actor, and she just bedazzles!”

Do not, however, mention the word “retirement” to either actor in real life. On Thursday — with The Love Punch amusing audiences at TIFF — Thompson and Brosnan told a festival press conference that neither has plans for an end to acting — ever.

“Retirement?” Thompson said. “I can’t afford to retire. It’s like asking a painter to stop painting. Why would you? So I would never dream of retiring. Look at Judi Dench. Judi is so brilliant and keeps working and she’s blind, actually. She’s extraordinary. She wouldn’t dreaming of retiring. It’s not in our genes.”

Brosnan, now 60 and almost a decade past playing James Bond, confirmed that has no plans to give up his career, either.

“I never think about it myself. What would I do? I’ve been an actor so many years and, God willing, I’ll continue to be an actor for years to come.”

That does not mean that things will always stay the same, however. Especially for Thompson, who threw the media a curve ball. While she usually plays sympathetic characters, that needs to stop, she said.

“I’d like to play a really bad person. Really evil! And I’d like to be in an action movie one day. You know, get really ripped and (put on) some tattoos. I’m not kidding, actually. I really would like to do that. Possibly, it’s a mid-life crisis. I don’t know.”

[From Toronto Sun]

God, I love them both. But does anyone else think that they wasted money making this movie when really they just should have made a documentary about Emma and Pierce hanging out in France for a summer? I would watch that.

Photos courtesy of WENN.