Latest news with #damehood
Irish Times
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Emma Thompson says she ‘could have changed history' if she had accepted date with Trump
Emma Thompson has accepted Academy Awards, Baftas and even a damehood over a glittering career, but there was one offer she had to turn down. The actor said she got asked out on a date by Donald Trump on the same day her divorce was confirmed. Ms Thompson said she was in her trailer filming Primary Colors in 1998, a political satire based on Bill Clinton's presidential rise, when the phone rang. 'It was Donald Trump,' Ms Thompson told an audience at the Locarno film festival in Switzerland, where she received the Leopard Club award for career achievement. READ MORE 'He said: 'Hello, this is Donald Trump.' I thought it was a joke and asked: 'How can I help you?' Maybe he needed directions from someone. 'Then he said: 'I'd love you to come and stay at one of my beautiful places. Maybe we could have dinner.' I said: 'Well, that's very sweet. Thank you so much. I'll get back to you.'' At the time, Mr Trump had just split from his second wife, Marla Maples. Ms Thompson, meanwhile, had just finalised her divorce from Kenneth Branagh. Only later did she twig the timing. 'I realised my divorce decree had come through that day,' she said on Saturday. 'I bet he's got people looking for a nice divorcee to take out on his arm. 'And he found the number in my trailer,' she joked. 'I mean, that's stalking.' Ms Thompson, a lifelong UK Labour supporter who publicly backed Jeremy Corbyn's 2017 and 2019 election campaigns, is a high-profile environmental activist who has campaigned for refugee and women's rights. She joked she could have altered geopolitics if she'd accepted Trump's offer. 'I could have gone on a date with Donald Trump, and then I would have a story to tell,' she said. 'I could have changed the course of American history.' The talk at the festival also covered Thompson's film career and one of her most famous roles, in Richard Curtis's Christmas romcom, Love Actually. In the 2003 classic, Thompson plays Karen, whose marriage to Harry, played by Alan Rickman, comes under strain when Harry becomes tempted into an affair with his secretary. Reflecting on the film's everlasting popularity, she said: 'I mean, it's honestly a constant source of astonishment to me that that film lasted – not that I don't like the film. I like it very much, but it's weird.' Discussing the movie and the moment Karen discovers her partner has been unfaithful, she said she believes its appeal 'touched a nerve because [when] we get a heartbreak, especially women, we have to hide it because we don't want people to see it'. – Guardian
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Love? Actually, no: Emma Thompson reveals Donald Trump asked her on a date
Emma Thompson has accepted Academy Awards, Baftas and even a damehood over a glittering career, but there was one offer she had to turn down. The actor says she once got asked out on a date by Donald Trump on the same day her divorced was confirmed. Thompson said she was in her trailer filming Primary Colors in 1998, a political satire based on Bill Clinton's presidential rise, when the phone rang. 'It was Donald Trump,' Thompson told an audience at the Locarno film festival in Switzerland, where she received the Leopard Club award for career achievement. 'He said: 'Hello, this is Donald Trump.' I thought it was a joke and asked: 'How can I help you?' Maybe he needed directions from someone. 'Then he said: 'I'd love you to come and stay at one of my beautiful places. Maybe we could have dinner.' I said: 'Well, that's very sweet. Thank you so much. I'll get back to you.'' At the time, Trump had just split from his second wife, Marla Maples. Thompson, meanwhile, had just finalised her divorce from Kenneth Branagh. Only later did she twig the timing. 'I realised my divorce decree had come through that day,' she said on Saturday. 'I bet he's got people looking for a nice divorcee to take out on his arm. 'And he found the number in my trailer,' she joked. 'I mean, that's stalking.' Thompson, a lifelong Labour supporter who publicly backed Jeremy Corbyn's 2017 and 2019 election campaigns, is a high-profile environmental activist who has campaigned for refugee and women's rights. She told the audience she could have altered geopolitics if she'd accepted Trump's offer. 'I could have gone on a date with Donald Trump, and then I would have a story to tell,' she said. 'I could have changed the course of American history.' The talk at the festival also covered Thompson's film career and one of her most famous roles in Richard Curtis' Christmas romcom, Love Actually. In the 2003 classic, Thompson plays Karen, whose marriage to Harry, played by Alan Rickman, comes under strain when Harry becomes tempted into an affair with his secretary. Reflecting on the film's everlasting popularity, she said: 'I mean, it's honestly a constant source of astonishment to me that that film lasted – not that I don't like the film. I like it very much, but it's weird.' Discussing the movie and the moment Karen discovers her partner has been unfaithful, she said she believes its appeal 'touched a nerve because [when] we get a heartbreak, especially women, we have to hide it because we don't want people to see it'.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Love? Actually, no: Emma Thompson reveals Donald Trump asked her on a date
Emma Thompson has accepted Academy Awards, Baftas and even a damehood over a glittering career, but there was one offer she had to turn down. The actor says she once got asked out on a date by Donald Trump on the same day her divorced was confirmed. Thompson said she was in her trailer filming Primary Colors in 1998, a political satire based on Bill Clinton's presidential rise, when the phone rang. 'It was Donald Trump,' Thompson told an audience at the Locarno film festival in Switzerland, where she received the Leopard Club award for career achievement. 'He said: 'Hello, this is Donald Trump.' I thought it was a joke and asked: 'How can I help you?' Maybe he needed directions from someone. 'Then he said: 'I'd love you to come and stay at one of my beautiful places. Maybe we could have dinner.' I said: 'Well, that's very sweet. Thank you so much. I'll get back to you.'' At the time, Trump had just split from his second wife, Marla Maples. Thompson, meanwhile, had just finalised her divorce from Kenneth Branagh. Only later did she twig the timing. 'I realised my divorce decree had come through that day,' she said on Saturday. 'I bet he's got people looking for a nice divorcee to take out on his arm. 'And he found the number in my trailer,' she joked. 'I mean, that's stalking.' Thompson, a lifelong Labour supporter who publicly backed Jeremy Corbyn's 2017 and 2019 election campaigns, is a high-profile environmental activist who has campaigned for refugee and women's rights. She told the audience she could have altered geopolitics if she'd accepted Trump's offer. 'I could have gone on a date with Donald Trump, and then I would have a story to tell,' she said. 'I could have changed the course of American history.' The talk at the festival also covered Thompson's film career and one of her most famous roles in Richard Curtis' Christmas romcom, Love Actually. In the 2003 classic, Thompson plays Karen, whose marriage to Harry, played by Alan Rickman, comes under strain when Harry becomes tempted into an affair with his secretary. Reflecting on the film's everlasting popularity, she said: 'I mean, it's honestly a constant source of astonishment to me that that film lasted – not that I don't like the film. I like it very much, but it's weird.' Discussing the movie and the moment Karen discovers her partner has been unfaithful, she said she believes its appeal 'touched a nerve because we get a heartbreak, especially women, we have to hide it because we don't want people to see it'.
The Independent
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Author Dame Pat Barker thought honours letter was income tax bill
Author Pat Barker, known for The Regeneration Trilogy, thought the letter announcing her damehood in the King's Birthday Honours was an income tax bill and that HMRC were 'really angry'. Dame Pat, 82, became a CBE in 2000 and is being given her damehood, one of the highest honours in the United Kingdom, for services to literature. The Booker Prize winner has published 16 novels, diving into anti-war themes including trauma and memory. Describing the moment she received the news of her damehood, she said: 'I picked up the envelope from the carpet and the first thing I noticed, what beautiful quality paper it was, and I thought, this is either the income tax getting really angry, or it's something from the Palace or the Cabinet Office. 'Nobody else does that kind of quality of paper. I still sort of had to read the first paragraph several times before it sank in.' Her debut novel, Union Street, was published in 1982 and won her the 1983 Best Of Young British Novelists award. It was later made into the film, Stanley And Iris, starring Jane Fonda and Robert De Niro. She added: ' One of the things that, in spite of everything, I like about the British honour system is the way it records people who do very low profile, working for free, long hours, weeks, months, years, for something that they genuinely believe in and usually unpaid, and for the benefit of other people, and they are the bedrock of the honour system, and they actually are the reason why it is so respected, and knights and dames are just cherries on the top of that cake. 'I am happy to be a cherry.' The author is known for exploring the effects of war in her novels, attributing her grandfather and stepfather as inspiration for some of her most popular books. She said: 'I was very much a war baby. My Victory in Europe Day was my second birthday, and I thought the street parties were for me, as any two year old would. 'I think in my family, there were people who bore the very visible mental and physical injuries of war. 'My stepfather, for example, was in the trenches at 15, my grandfather had a bayonet wound, and he used to get stripped off at the kitchen sink, and the bayonet wound was terrible, very obvious, and he never talked about it. So you've got the two things there that are essential for writers, a story that is obviously present, but which isn't being told. 'The last thing any writer needs is a completed story. What you need as a writer is a mystery. And I had that.' She began writing the Regeneration trilogy in 1991 with the first book following English Lieutenant Billy Prior as he is being treated for shellshock. The book was adapted into a film in 1997 which starred The Two Popes actor Jonathan Pryce and Maurice's James Wilby. In 1993, Dame Pat published the second book in the trilogy, The Eye In The Door, which follows William Rivers, the psychiatrist treating Prior at Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh. She was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize that same year and in 1995 won the Booker Prize for Fiction for The Ghost Road, the third book in the trilogy, which recounts the final months of the war from alternating perspectives of Billy, as he is about to rejoin the war, and William, who grapples with the work he has done to help injured men at the hospital. More recently, the novelist was shortlisted for The Women's Prize For Fiction in 2019 for her book, The Silence Of The Girls, part of The Woman Of Troy trilogy, which recounts the lives of women living through the Trojan War. It is followed by The Women Of Troy (2021) and The Voyage Home (2024), and sees the author shift her storytelling both in its genre, from historical fiction to myth, and characters, writing from the perspective of women instead of men. She said: 'I was wanting to deal with the experience of women, and specifically with rape as a weapon of war, because that is really what the Trojan trilogy, as it is at the moment, is about and that is also a very up to date, modern area of political and legal debate, making rape a war crime similar and equal to other war crimes. 'I think that is a battle that is still being fought for women in lots of ways. And that shadows the subsequent lives of women, but also of their children, who are very often the product of rape, and that is difficult for the woman and the child and the community that the woman comes from. 'So it seems as if it's thousands of years ago but actually myth isn't thousands of years ago. Myth is applicable to our lives today, and that's always what I want to bring out.' Dame Pat was born in Thornaby-on-Tees, Cleveland, and raised mainly by her grandparents. She began her writing career in her late 30s after studying international history at the London School of Economics and taught history and politics at colleges of further education until 1982.
The Independent
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Either the tax man or the palace: Dame Pat Barker on mistaking honours letter for HMRC
Author Pat Barker initially mistook the letter informing her of her damehood in the King's Birthday Honours for an income tax bill. The writer, known for her celebrated Regeneration Trilogy, joked that she thought HMRC were "really angry" as she accepted the highest of the King's honours. Dame Pat, 82, who was appointed a CBE in 2000, is being awarded for her contributions to literature. With 16 novels to her name, the Booker Prize-winner is renowned for her exploration of anti-war themes, including trauma and memory. Describing the moment she received the news of her damehood, she said: 'I picked up the envelope from the carpet and the first thing I noticed, what beautiful quality paper it was, and I thought, this is either the income tax getting really angry, or it's something from the Palace or the Cabinet Office. 'Nobody else does that kind of quality of paper. I still sort of had to read the first paragraph several times before it sank in.' Her debut novel, Union Street, was published in 1982 and won her the 1983 Best Of Young British Novelists award. It was later made into the film, Stanley And Iris, starring Jane Fonda and Robert De Niro. She added: 'One of the things that, in spite of everything, I like about the British honour system is the way it records people who do very low profile, working for free, long hours, weeks, months, years, for something that they genuinely believe in and usually unpaid, and for the benefit of other people, and they are the bedrock of the honour system, and they actually are the reason why it is so respected, and knights and dames are just cherries on the top of that cake. 'I am happy to be a cherry.' The author is known for exploring the effects of war in her novels, attributing her grandfather and stepfather as inspiration for some of her most popular books. She said: 'I was very much a war baby. My Victory in Europe Day was my second birthday, and I thought the street parties were for me, as any two year old would. 'I think in my family, there were people who bore the very visible mental and physical injuries of war. 'My stepfather, for example, was in the trenches at 15, my grandfather had a bayonet wound, and he used to get stripped off at the kitchen sink, and the bayonet wound was terrible, very obvious, and he never talked about it. So you've got the two things there that are essential for writers, a story that is obviously present, but which isn't being told. 'The last thing any writer needs is a completed story. What you need as a writer is a mystery. And I had that.' She began writing the Regeneration trilogy in 1991 with the first book following English Lieutenant Billy Prior as he is being treated for shellshock. The book was adapted into a film in 1997 which starred The Two Popes actor Jonathan Pryce and Maurice's James Wilby. In 1993, Dame Pat published the second book in the trilogy, The Eye In The Door, which follows William Rivers, the psychiatrist treating Prior at Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh. She was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize that same year and in 1995 won the Booker Prize for Fiction for The Ghost Road, the third book in the trilogy, which recounts the final months of the war from alternating perspectives of Billy, as he is about to rejoin the war, and William, who grapples with the work he has done to help injured men at the hospital. More recently, the novelist was shortlisted for The Women's Prize For Fiction in 2019 for her book, The Silence Of The Girls, part of The Woman Of Troy trilogy, which recounts the lives of women living through the Trojan War. It is followed by The Women Of Troy (2021) and The Voyage Home (2024), and sees the author shift her storytelling both in its genre, from historical fiction to myth, and characters, writing from the perspective of women instead of men. She said: 'I was wanting to deal with the experience of women, and specifically with rape as a weapon of war, because that is really what the Trojan trilogy, as it is at the moment, is about and that is also a very up to date, modern area of political and legal debate, making rape a war crime similar and equal to other war crimes. 'I think that is a battle that is still being fought for women in lots of ways. And that shadows the subsequent lives of women, but also of their children, who are very often the product of rape, and that is difficult for the woman and the child and the community that the woman comes from. 'So it seems as if it's thousands of years ago but actually myth isn't thousands of years ago. Myth is applicable to our lives today, and that's always what I want to bring out.' Dame Pat was born in Thornaby-on-Tees, Cleveland, and raised mainly by her grandparents. She began her writing career in her late 30s after studying international history at the London School of Economics and taught history and politics at colleges of further education until 1982.
