Emma Thompson

Only one person in the entire history of the Oscars has won the statuette for both acting and writing, and it is her. Emma Thompson was born in London on 15 April 1959, into a family steeped in show business: her father, Eric Thompson, was the creator and narrator of the British version of 'The Magic Roundabout', and her mother is the Scottish actress Phyllida Law. Her younger sister, Sophie Thompson, acts too.

From Cambridge to the Oscars

At Cambridge she read English and joined the legendary Footlights comedy troupe, sharing the stage with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. After triumphing in the West End with the musical 'Me and My Girl', the miniseries 'Fortunes of War' (1987) changed her life twice over: it launched her as a dramatic actress and introduced her to Kenneth Branagh, whom she married in 1989.

Together they became British cinema's golden couple: Henry V (1989), the thriller Dead Again (1991), Peter's Friends (1992) and the Shakespearean Much Ado About Nothing (1993).

Her acting summit came with Howards End (1992), which won her the Academy Award for Best Actress, along with the BAFTA and the Golden Globe. And in case any doubt remained, the following year she made history with a double nomination: lead for The Remains of the Day, opposite Anthony Hopkins, and supporting for In the Name of the Father, with Daniel Day-Lewis.

'Sense and Sensibility', the writing Oscar

She spent five years adapting Jane Austen, and the effort paid off: Sense and Sensibility (1995), directed by Ang Lee, brought her the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, another acting nomination and one of the most celebrated acceptance speeches in memory, delivered in the voice of Austen herself. Nobody else has managed to win the statuette in both disciplines.

That shoot changed her life too: her marriage to Branagh had just collapsed in 1995, and on set she met the actor Greg Wise, her partner ever since. Years later she spoke with her usual candour about that painful period and the depression she went through.

From Hogwarts to Nanny McPhee

The new century made her a face beloved by every generation. She broke hearts with the saddest scene in Love Actually (2003), that mother crying alone to Joni Mitchell, played the eccentric Professor Trelawney in the Harry Potter saga from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) onwards, and wrote and starred in Nanny McPhee (2005) and its sequel Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (2010).

In between she shone in the metafictional fantasy Stranger Than Fiction (2006), voiced the queen in Brave (2012), faced down Walt Disney as the writer P.L. Travers in Saving Mr. Banks (2013) and even went blockbuster with Men in Black 3 (2012). On television, her work in 'Wit' and 'Angels in America' became HBO classics, and she even won an Emmy for playing herself on the sitcom 'Ellen'.

Dame, activist and afraid of nothing

In 2018 she was made a Dame of the British Empire, and celebrated in the only way she could: collecting the honour in trainers. Far from slowing down, she strung together the political villain of Years and Years (2019), the Baroness of Cruella (2021), Mrs Potts in Beauty and the Beast (2017), the fearsome Trunchbull of Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical (2022) and the screenplay of Last Christmas (2019), which she also produced.

Her bravest performance arrived at 63: the widow who hires a young sex worker in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022), a masterclass in physical and emotional nakedness that critics applauded on their feet. Since then have come her return in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (2025), the frozen thriller Dead of Winter (2025), which she also produced, and the detective Zoë Boehm of 'Down Cemetery Road', the Apple TV+ series launched in October 2025 alongside Ruth Wilson. In 2026 comes The Sheep Detectives.

A lifelong campaigner for Greenpeace and for refugees, Thompson is famously outspoken: her speeches and campaigns are as fondly remembered as her roles.

Greg Wise, Gaia and Tindy

She married Greg Wise in Scotland in 2003, after nearly a decade together. Their daughter Gaia was born in 1999, and years later the family grew in the most unexpected way: they took in and informally adopted Tindyebwa Agaba, a young Rwandan former child soldier they met at a refugee charity event. She introduces him, simply, as her son.

At 67, the woman who won Oscars for writing and for acting remains the person cinema calls when it needs intelligence and heart in equal measure. And knowing her, she still has a few registers left to unveil.

The earliest credit MovieNCo has for Emma Thompson is The Tall Guy (1989); in all, 58 films and 1 TV show over 37 years. They have worked as actress in 58, writer in 7 and producer in 3. Their title most voted by MovieNCo readers is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (2011), with 318 votes. Their busiest decade is the 2010s, with 27 titles. The person they have worked with most is Tim Bevan, on 12 films, among them Love Actually and Bridget Jones' Baby.