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My Writing Life: Emma Thompson

Actor, screenwriter and author Emma Thompson – who recently joined us at The Hay Festival to celebrate 100 years of Royal Literary Fund benefactor AA Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh – on her own writing life.

1. What book should every writer read?

No should to offer, but all could usefully read A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf.

2. What is your typical writing day like?

I rise around 8 and drink coffee until I’m ready to sit at my desk. I write for no more than two hours (I hate sitting down), and then I walk for at least two hours. Then I come home and stare into space for a bit, and then I forget about everything and do something entirely different for the rest of the day.

3. Who has been an influential figure in your writing career?

I don’t think I have had what could be called a writing career as such, but when I am writing screenplays, my producer friend and colleague Lindsay Doran is a brilliant editor and encourager.

4. What is the one thing you wish someone had told you before you started your career as a professional writer?

Be prepared to write lots of things no one will ever make into films.

5. What is the best advice you’ve ever received about your writing?

Just sit there and do it. Don’t worry about failing because you will fail often. Best get used to it.

6. What has been the proudest moment of your career so far?

Winning an Oscar for Sense and Sensibility was a lovely moment.

7. What are you reading right now?

The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler.

8. Bookmarker or page-folder?

Oh, BOOKMARK, what on earth do you take me for?

Emma Thompson is one of the world’s most critically lauded and respected talents for her versatility in acting as well as screenwriting. She is the sole artist thus far to have received an Academy Award for both acting (Howard’s End) and screenwriting (Sense and Sensibility). In June of 2018, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Well-known for her acting, her screenwriting credits also include Last Christmas (as co-screenwriter and producer), Nanny McPhee and Nanny McPhee Returns. In 2022 she teamed up with bestselling illustrator Axel Scheffler to write a Christmas tale about Jim, the real-life dog who belonged to Sir Henry Cole, the V&A’s founding director. Sir Henry Cole famously sent the first ever Christmas card in 1843. Jim’s Spectacular Christmas was published by Puffin in collaboration with the V&A. She was also commissioned to write the 24th, 25th and 26th tales in the existing collection of Peter Rabbit stories beginning in 2014, the only author since Beatrix Potter to do so.

Emma is President of the Helen Bamber Foundation, a UK-based human rights organisation, formed in April 2005, to help rebuild the lives of survivors of gross human rights violations. In 2007, on behalf of the Foundation, Emma co-curated “Journey,” an interactive art installation which used seven transport containers to illustrate the brutal and harrowing experiences of women sold into the sex trade. Emma and “Journey” travelled to London, Vienna, Madrid, New York and the Netherlands for exhibitions and interviews. She is also an active supporter of Greenpeace and the UK-based Food Foundation and Child Hunger, as well as being an ambassador for the international development agency ActionAid, a Patron of the Refugee Council and of Edinburgh College’s Performing Arts Studio of Scotland. She also supports Elect Her, an organisation that helps women at the grassroots to enter politics.

This article originally appeared on our Substack. 

Photography © Nick Haddow.

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