-Our first guest tonight
is an Academy Award and Emmy-winning actress
who you know from films such as "Love, Actually,"
"Sense and Sensibility," and "Cruella."
She stars in "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,"
which begins streaming on Hulu tomorrow.
Let's take a look.
-What does she think about what -- what you're doing now?
-You want to talk about my mother? Really?
-Well, you brought her up.
-Well, now I'm dropping it.
-But seriously.
-She doesn't know.
-Mm.
-You know, this looks so sexy on you.
-What does she think you do?
-If I tell you, can we drop it?
Because you really do look good in this.
-I promise.
-She thinks I work at an oil rig.
-[ Laughs ]
-Please welcome back to the show
the always wonderful Emma Thompson, everyone!
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Oh, I feel like...
I feel like this is a step back to normalcy.
We haven't had you here since 2019.
It was worth waiting for an audience to have you back.
-I started swimming in 2019.
I just arrived.
-You -- Oh! You came... -Yeah, I just thought,
you know, COVID arrived, so I just thought
"I'd better get going now." -Oh, that's so smart.
-If I'm gonna make it for Seth in 2022.
-And you swam all the way here.
-All the way.
-Now, do you have to wear one of those...
I feel like there's a buoy you pull behind yourself
so the ships know someone's swimming.
-Yeah. -Did you wear one of those?
-I did. I did. I did.
You may be able to tell, ladies and gentlemen,
we haven't prepared for this. [ Laughter ]
So this is something that's just come out of my --
-Yeah. -Literally.
I just had this thought that somehow 2019...
Years have gone by, and it's so weird
'cause we would have seen each other.
We would all have been in the same room together.
And look, you're all still having to wear masks.
I'm so sorry. Of course, we've banished COVID
and, you know, like, what I call Party Land now.
-Yeah. -The UK.
-Yeah, there's no masks over there now.
-No, no. No, everyone's just gone...
No. -Yeah, well...
Congratulations on pretending it's over.
-Thank you so much. We all have it.
Obviously, yeah, everyone's got it.
-Yeah, yeah, exactly. [ Both laugh ]
-Now, this is a wonderful film,
and I guess this was a bit of a --
maybe not born out of COVID,
but this was a -- this was a short shoot.
This is 19 days.
You did this wonderful film in 19 days.
Can you tell us a little bit about the movie?
-For sure. Now, it's written by
a comedian called Katy Brand, who I'd worked with.
She sent me the script
and it's about -- it's about a religious education teacher,
retired, my age -- 63,
who has been widowed for two years
and has -- apart from anything else,
had never had an orgasm.
And she's had a deeply rudimentary sex life,
having once had a sort of wonderful experience
when she was 16 on a Greek island.
To which I relate. [ Laughter ]
And anyway, she hires a very much younger sex worker
played by the exquisite and brilliant Daryl McCormack,
as you saw in that clip.
And it's about them getting to know one another,
but in the most unexpected ways.
They make assumptions about one another,
and you've never seen -- I have never seen these people before.
I've seen Nancy, 'cause she's the sort of person
who gets to be in movies
and be next to the person who does the interesting thing.
-Uh-huh.
-But she's never the person
who does the interesting thing.
You know, she's the mother or the wife or the taxi driver
or the waitress or whatever.
You know, she's just "Woman."
Blonde, you know, pretty, whatever.
But now, suddenly, she's doing something
completely fascinating,
utterly radical and revolutionary
with a young man I've never seen before,
who is a sex worker,
but, like, he's a sex carer.
He's so compassionate and understanding.
You know, she spends quite a lot of the film going,
"Please, don't make me, I can't do that."
She's just utterly panicked by what she's done.
And he says, "Why is it --
you've organized this, you've thought about it,
you've went online, you chose me,
you've paid for it.
So now you've got what you want,
and I'm very here willing to do this.
Why can't you take it?"
And she says, "I don't know.
It feels controversial all of a sudden."
And I think it's because women are not
traditionally invited to think about what they might want,
and they're certainly not invited to think
about what gives them pleasure.
And I think that we're very bad --
we've ostracized sex anywhere.
I mean, sex is supposed to be naughty, dirty.
You know, it's just something that we laugh at, actually,
instead of respecting it as one of the primary
forces in our lives.
And if you think about other pleasures in our lives,
like food, we're completely obsessed.
I mean, people will talk about food from dawn until dusk,
you know, but we don't talk about sex.
-Right. -We really don't talk about it.
-Well, our mouths are full.
-Well, yeah. That's true. [ Laughter ]
-Yeah. -There is nudity in the film.
Were you trepidatious about the nudity?
Were you... How did you feel?
-Well, I did once spend three days naked
with Jeff Goldblum some years ago.
-Okay. -I mean...
-Not the worst fella to end up naked with.
-I mean, it was for work.
I hasten to add, this was a working situation.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-"The Tall Man"?
-Yeah. It was "The Tall Guy."
-"The Tall Guy." -Yeah. Yeah.
-That's an impressive pull. I want a little credit
for pulling "The Tall Guy." -[ Laughs ]
I'm really impressed. It was a million years ago.
But anyway, we both had indigestion for weeks
before that 'cause we were so scared.
But actually, it gave me a little confidence
because when you are stripped on set,
it's quite sort of...
it makes everybody very, very careful.
But it's also very funny
'cause if, like, props come up to you with something,
they'll come up to you
and they'll come up to your face and go,
"Here you go, Seth. Here's your prop."
And then they'll walk away, but not looking down.
No looking down. "Yes, here's your..."
And then they walk away, keeping their eyes up,
just in case you think that they're looking.
-Right. -But it's actually...
It's rather a leveling thing to do.
The director, Daryl, and I spent one day
in a closed set rehearsing.
And we all, we just took our clothes off
and we did it bit by bit and looked at our bodies
and said, "Well, I don't like this bit
because, well, I've got a scar here."
And then we drew around them
and wrote on them.
And when you do maps of your body like that,
it just becomes the thing that you can accept
and you can look at with a neutral gaze.
And you're not just always looking in the mirror
and going, "That's just wrong.
What can I do?
I'm gonna -- I know what I'm gonna do!
I'm gonna waste my passion, my energy,
my curiosity,
my money, and my life's purpose
worrying about my body.
That's what I'll do. What a good idea!"
Welcome! Yeah, let's do that.
It's so much fun!
[ Cheers and applause ]
No! Stop it, everyone. Stop it.
There are 8-year-olds out there
saying, "I don't like my thighs."
-It's crazy. -We've got to...
We have to just, like, kick it into the long grass.
-There's something...
Hopefully, you know, this is not a film
for 8-year-olds, but this is very exciting.
-No, so not. Yeah. -"Matilda" is.
-Ah, indeed. -And I would like to close
by showing that...
This is just wonderful that you're gonna be in "Matilda."
And it should be noted, obviously,
this is Miss Trunchbull? -Mm-hmm.
-This is quite a...
This is quite a bit of prosthetic work here.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
I'm assuming she does not have a nude scene.
Is that safe to say? [ Laughter ]
-Oh, I wish.
You should have seen my underwear.
Now, there's someone who needs the services of a sex worker.
[ Laughter ]
-Oh, boy.
-Maybe as kind of like a parting gift.
A wrap gift. -[ Laughs ] Yeah.
-Thank you so much for being here.
Congratulations on the film.
It's always such a wonder to be with you.
-It's great to see you. -Emma Thompson, everybody.
"Good Luck to You, Leo Grande"
begins streaming on Hulu tomorrow.
We'll be right back with Jack Quaid.