It’s such a cold night and it’s the only time I’ve actively been grateful for menopause. I’ve been entirely comfortable. — Emma Thompson

One is a child when one has a child. No one says, ‘You will never be the same again.’ Which is the truth! And we’re all supposed to be happy all the time. What is that about? — Emma Thompson

The flashbacks are parallel for me. You experience two storylines at the same time, and I’m not switching from one time to another. — Emma Thompson

Girlfriends are vital … Maggie [Gyllenhaal] and I will always see each other when Maggie’s in London or I’m here. We’ll always make time to sit and catch up properly. — Emma Thompson

It’s about time a 55–year–old British woman is the heroine of an action movie. I may have to write it. — Emma Thompson

We’ve got people looking at our seamy side and our sad side a lot of the time because that’s easier. It’s much more difficult to make a film about happiness with lots of jokes in it. — Emma Thompson

If there’s a role you’re playing and there’s a great deal of material to explore because the person was real then it’s a completely different preparation time and message to playing someone fictional. — Emma Thompson

I Don’t Need the nicotene patch, Penny–I smoke cigarettes. — Emma Thompson

I think people say you shouldn’t work with children or animals, but you must only work with children. — Emma Thompson

There is that thing about not working with animals and children–I don’t think that’s true. Although you should never work with donkeys. — Emma Thompson

The films I’ve made for children have been my hardest work, my best, because kids deserve the best. — Emma Thompson

It doesn’t matter how good the movie is. What matters is what it takes during the opening weekend. It’s slightly distressing sometimes but that’s how it works. — Emma Thompson

I don’t think people understand that being poor means you have to work from dawn until dusk just to survive through the day. I think there’s some notion that poor people lie about all day not doing anything. — Emma Thompson

I’ve a problem with the word charity because I think that NGOs, as I prefer calling them, really do take the work of moral and social responsibilities that ought to be taken on by governments. — Emma Thompson

On period costume posture coaching:) ‘We all stand about like parboiled spaghetti being straightened out. — Emma Thompson

It is remarkable how many misconceptions there are here about life in the developing world and I think that that knowledge gap has done a lot to contribute to the imbalance quite frankly. — Emma Thompson

It’s not my fault that there is this gap between rich and poor, it is the fault of governments. I want a different world. One where I don’t wake up thinking I’m so lucky to be able to feed my daughter. — Emma Thompson

A lot of people in my world–in the acting world–have either lost friends to Aids or live with HIV because its origin in our culture, in New York for instance, was in the gay community. — Emma Thompson

We have to reinvest, I think, in the idea of articulacy as a form of personal human freedom and power. — Emma Thompson

Film is so much to do with perfection and how differently you can feel about someone at the beginning of the film and the end of the film. — Emma Thompson

I’ve never been on the cover of Empire. I’m very bitter. I’ve got an award but now I feel sad and cross. — Emma Thompson

My appearance has changed a lot over the years, but it has far more to do with how I feel about being a woman. — Emma Thompson

I think our hearts are very chemical and we change the way we see people according to how we feel about them. That’s what love is, in a way. — Emma Thompson