-Our first guest tonight is an Academy Award- and Emmy-winning
actress you know from "Love Actually"
and "Sense and Sensibility."
She's currently starring in "The Children Act,"
which is now available exclusively on DirecTV
and in theaters this Friday.
Let's take a look.
-Court, rise.
-May it please you, My Lady? -Yes, Mr. Simms.
-My Lady, may I refer you to my client's undertaking?
-Your client, Mr. Simms, is in direct breach
of his undertaking to this court.
He's removed his daughter from the jurisdiction.
Now I hear he's in Rabat with no intention of returning here.
I was rather expecting to find you blushing on his behalf.
-Please welcome to the show Emma Thompson, everyone.
[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪
-Welcome! [ Cheers and applause ]
-Thank you. Oh, I'm exhausted.
-What a delight to have you here.
-Thank you very much. And I'm thrilled to be here.
-I want to congratulate you, as well.
You received an order -- Am I saying this right?
An Order of the British Empire?
-Yes. Dame Commander of the British Empire.
-Dame Commander.
-Yeah. -That's something else.
-Yeah. [ Cheers and applause ]
I've become much more commanding since it happened.
-Yes.
-See that little bow in that clip,
you know, where you see everyone doing that?
I've got everyone in the family doing that now.
-Oh, wow.
-I've also had every seat I sit on just slightly --
made slightly taller.
-Just a small elevation. -But it's subtle.
-Yes. -It's subtle.
So, people are slightly, you know,
just lifting their heads slightly more towards me
than they did before, but they're not quite sure why.
-Yes.
So, this isn't a situation where they say,
"Oh, Emma's changed.
She's sitting in the big chair."
You do it so subtly that they just feel --
-They'll never know. -Right.
-They'll never know. -That's really something else.
So, you would say that it has, effectively, gone to your head?
You're willing to accept that? -Effectively.
Yeah, I am. I'm willing to accept that.
-As far as your honors in your life, is it right up there?
Was it a moment where you thought,
"This is really something"?
-Well, actually, it's quite interesting,
because they send you a letter saying,
"Will you accept it?"
You can choose not to.
You can choose to say, "Well, of course,
we don't have an empire anymore, thank God,
because it was ghastly, colonial, racist, dreadful,
dreadful undertaking on every level,"
and actually have some moral principle about it
or you can be like me and think,
"Hmm, it's gonna be a really nice badge."
-Yeah.
Hard to say no to a badge. -It's hard to say no to a badge.
-A good badge. -Come on.
-So hard to find a good badge these days.
-Absolutely.
And the Queen -- you know, she'll have a little handbag,
in which I happen to know she keeps dog biscuits.
-I know she's a great lover of dogs, so...
-She does.
She'll open her handbag, take out a dog biscuit --
I've seen this -- and do like that, and the corgis roll over.
-Really? -Yeah.
-I love that you can reach an elevated place
and still think there's nothing better than watching
a dog roll over.
-Yeah, it makes you like her. -That you never outgrow that.
-Yeah, it really makes you love her, I know.
-I want to talk about this film. But I'm very excited.
You have a film coming up that Mindy Kaling wrote
called "Late Night," where you play
a late-night-talk-show host.
-Yes.
-Did you enjoy being part of this world, even fictionally?
-I did, I did.
I thought, "I could get into this."
And my studio was a little bit like this.
My audience weren't nearly as good as you guys,
but, you know...
[ Cheers and applause ] -Right.
-But it was --
-By the way, you pander to them so well.
I think you would be -- -I know.
-I think you'd be very good at job.
-I'm good at ingratiating myself with people.
So, yeah, and I just -- I loved it.
I really did love it.
I got a kind of feel for it.
And because I have such admiration for you guys --
I mean, it's a very hard job.
Night after night, you have to, well, infuse,
and that's not easy.
I mean, sometimes it's not -- -It's easier than you think.
-You know, you can't say -- Really?
-Yeah, it's --
-You can't do, "So, this very poor film that you're in
and which you're not very good,
how were attracted to the role?"
I mean, you know, you can't say things like that.
-Well, those were all questions I was about to ask you,
so now you've really...
Now you've really put the rest of this interview in jeopardy.
-Damn it.
-Did you speak to any talk-show host before you did it?
-Well, I didn't really, actually.
-Good. I'm glad, because I know you didn't talk to me,
and I would have been very insulted.
-I felt I didn't need to 'cause I've done so many talk shows.
I tell you what I did do.
I watched a lot of old talk shows,
'cause she would have -- 'Cause she's my age.
She's like late 50s.
So she would have grown up with -- As I did.
You know, the first talk show I did was with Johnny Carson.
-Did you really? -Yes.
-Wow!
-I was dressed like a geography teacher.
I had no idea about glamour.
And Jimmy Carter was on at the same time.
He was so nice. -That is a real --
-I know.
-You really hit the jackpot for your first talk show.
-I know. It was such fun. -Yeah.
My first talk show was someone canceled on Conan O'Brien,
and they called me like an hour beforehand.
For real.
-Were you appearing a guest? -I was a guest, yeah.
Yeah, they said, "Somebody canceled.
Will you come up and play a pizza box?"
No, they really did say, "Will you come up and --"
But that was because we were in the building.
He was here.
And so if they ever had last-minute cancellations,
they would just basically ring up, and the first person
who answered, they'd say, "Come down."
It was a big deal that first time.
It wasn't Jimmy Carter or anything like that,
but this round goes to you.