{"id":331010,"date":"2025-08-09T16:48:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T16:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/331010\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T16:48:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T16:48:11","slug":"emma-thompson-on-donald-trump-call-harry-potter-sex-joke-locarno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/331010\/","title":{"rendered":"Emma Thompson on Donald Trump Call, Harry Potter, Sex Joke: Locarno"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEmma Thompson<\/a> discussed her career, including getting a call from Donald Trump asking her on a date, her days doing stand-up comedy, including jokes about herpes and Margaret Thatcher, Sense and Sensibility, and the Monica Lewinsky scandal playing out during the Primary Colors shoot in Locarno<\/a>, Switzerland on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe appeared in front of a huge and hugely excited crowd after, on Friday evening, joining the likes of Faye Dunaway, Mia Farrow, Andy Garc\u00eda, Adrien Brody, Meg Ryan<\/a>, Hilary Swank<\/a>, Daisy Edgar-Jones, and Ir\u00e8ne Jacob as a recipient of the Locarno Film Festival<\/a>\u2018s Leopard Club Award<\/a> on the Swiss town\u2019s picturesque Piazza Grande. The Friday evening world premiere and awards ceremony was such a hot ticket in town that security had to turn people away when the square reached capacity.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt Saturday\u2019s talk, all seats were filled well ahead of the event, with more people crowding around outside the seating area to catch a glimpse of the star.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Monica Lewinsky scandal happened while she made Primary Colors. \u201cPoor Monica,\u201d she said, explaining the atmosphere on set this way: \u201cThe thing that we\u2019re making a film about is happening in real life. So that was very, very strange.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tStaying with the topic of U.S. politics, Thompson said, \u201cIt feels like a long time ago now, doesn\u2019t it? Oh, if only we could just have a nice sex scandal and not all this stuff.\u201c The audience broke into laughter about the joke that was widely understood as a reference to U.S. President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking of Trump: Thompson next recalled getting a call from him. \u201cI was in my trailer one day while we were making that movie [Primary Colors], and the phone rang, and it was Donald Trump,\u201d the actress recalled. \u201cI didn\u2019t know the number of the phone. No one had rung me on it before, and I said, \u2018Hello.\u2019 \u2018Hi, this is Donald Trump here,\u2019 and I thought it was a joke. And then I said, \u2018How can I help you?,\u2019 thinking maybe he needed directions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThompson said Trump responded by saying: \u201cI\u2019d love you to come and stay at one of my beautiful places. Maybe we could have dinner.\u201d Her response: \u201cWell, that\u2019s very sweet. Thank you so much. I\u2019ll get back to you.\u201d Continued Thompson: \u201cAnd then I realized that on that day, my divorce, my divorce decree, you know, the final papers of my divorce had come through. And I thought I bet he\u2019s got people looking for suitable people he could take out on his arm, you know, a nice divorcee. That\u2019s what he was looking for, and he found the number in my trailer. I mean, that\u2019s stalking!\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tConcluded Thompson: \u201cBut I could have gone on a date with Donald Trump, and then I would have a story to tell. I could have changed the course of American history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe star\u2019s work in the Harry Potter films also came up, of course. \u201cThis is not really an important part of my creative endeavor,\u201d she said, highlighting that she would typically only come in for a few days of shoots rather than being part of the whole production. \u201cI\u2019m really sorry. I don\u2019t mean to be rude to those of you who like Harry Potter, but you know, I really came in, did a bit with glasses and hair, and then left, having been quite well paid.\u201d She added: \u201cI\u2019m very grateful to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLaughs ensued yet again. Speaking of laughter, Thompson recalled her comedy days, including her time doing stand-up.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI used to say that herpes and Margaret Thatcher were both very difficult to get rid of, which is a joke that still stands to this day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I was a comedian, I wrote a television series, which was a series of comedy sketches,\u201d Thompson also recalled on Saturday. \u201dOne of the sketches was about a Victorian woman who comes home to see her mother, and she\u2019s asking her mother about a problem she\u2019s got with her husband, who appears to have a small creature attached to his body, and she doesn\u2019t know what it is\u2026 Of course, he\u2019s talking about his penis, and she has no education at all, she doesn\u2019t know what sex is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tConcluded Thompson: \u201cIt\u2019s about sexual ignorance, but it\u2019s funny. So the producer of Sense and Sensibility saw this sketch and thought, this woman can adapt Jane Austen.\u201d After the audience broke into laughter, the star added: \u201cI think it is a very interesting sort of connection that I wrote a comedy sketch about somebody\u2019s very unfortunate sex life, and that led to Sense and Sensibility. That\u2019s so weird.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter the British star received the honor, her new film, action-thriller\u00a0Dead of Winter, directed\u00a0by Brian Kirk, world premiered on the third evening of the 78th edition<\/a> of the fest. Written by Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb, the film also stars Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca, Thompson\u2019s daughter Gaia Wise, Lloyd Hutchinson, and Br\u00edan F. O\u2019Byrne. Thompson is also an executive producer on it.<\/p>\n

\n\tThompson plays a widowed fisherwoman who travels alone through snowbound northern Minnesota and interrupts the kidnapping of a teenage girl. \u201cHours from the nearest town and with no phone service, she realizes that she is the young girl\u2019s only hope,\u201d reads a synopsis.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Saturday, Thompson Most women I know are incredibly heroic\u201d and have to be \u201cliving in a patriarchy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe one thing that really scared me, genuinely scared me, was not running about, although I did pull every single muscle in my body,\u201d Thompson had told a press conference on Friday<\/a>. Her biggest fear had to do with going under water, she shared.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Leopard Club, the supporting association of the\u00a0Locarno Film Festival<\/a>, presents the Leopard Club Award each year to \u201can individual whose work in the film industry has left its mark on the collective imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn unveiling Thompson as this year\u2019s recipient in June, Locarno organizers emphasized: \u201cShe is the only person in the history of the Academy Awards to have won for both acting and screenwriting. Thompson\u2019s willingness to take risks with her roles has meant that she has remained a vital force on stage and screen for four decades, a testament to the depth of affection multiple generations of fans hold for her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring her Friday evening Leopard Club Award acceptance speech, Thompson said she was \u201ca little bit overwhelmed\u201d and charmed the crowd with her Italian, as you can see in the video below. Her daughter Gaia also shared some thoughts on her experience on Dead of Winter. The Locarno festival runs through Aug. 16.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emma Thompson discussed her career, including getting a call from Donald Trump asking her on a date, her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3940],"tags":[4080,50245,77,118919,522,118920,118921,118922,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-331010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-emma-thompson","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-hilary-swank","12":"tag-international","13":"tag-locarno","14":"tag-locarno-film-festival","15":"tag-meg-ryan","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114999834979391279","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}