Emma Thompson, a renowned actress and screenwriter, recently sat down for an interview with The New Yorker to talk about the new project that she will be undertaking, that of a musical. But amidst the conversation about her films and career, the British actress also revealed some gory details about her personal life that had left her utterly distraught at the time.
While talking about one of her movies, Sense and Sensibility (1995), the actress opened up about the plights she endured during the time it was being filmed because of being in the thrall of grief and heartbreak. She recalled having to put on the facade of a brave face whereas in reality she was being tormented by the prospect of her marriage falling apart.
The Cruella star had then been married to the British actor and filmmaker, Kenneth Branagh, only for the light in their relationship to snuff out with the latter cheating on her. And that had left the Late Night actress inconsolable as she tried to come to terms with the entire situation.
Emma Thompson opens up about her husband’s infidelity
Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh tied the knot all the way back in 1989 and appeared in multiple films and shows together Fortunes War, The Boat That Rocked, and even the Harry Potter series. However, while working on the film, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Branagh had gone ahead and sparked a relationship with Helena Bonham Carter who was one of his co-stars.
While recalling that chapter of her life, Thompson remarked how embarrassed and naive she’d felt due to being “blind” to the fact that Branagh had “relationships with other women,” while he was still married to her.
“I was utterly, utterly blind to the fact that he had relationships with other women on set. What I learned was how easy it is to be blinded by your own desire to deceive yourself.”
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The Love Actually actress recalled being only “half alive” after the Thor filmmaker cheated on her. She opened up about how difficult it had been for her to cope with it and how she felt completely unlovable as seeds of doubt and self-hatred got planted in her mind as a consequence of it all.
.”I was half alive. Any sense of being a lovable or worthy person had gone completely.”
Though that time of her life had been a miserable one, as the Howards End star herself pointed out, the one good thing to come out of that disaster was her relationship with her current partner.
Emma Thompson has been happily married for the last 19 years
Branagh’s cheating on Thompson during the course of their marriage really broke the latter down and crushed her self-esteem to fragments. But there was one outcome of it that ended up proving to be a blessing for Thompson later in life, and that was her relationship with Greg Wise.
When the Last Chance Harvey actress had been rendered absolutely heartbroken, it was Greg Wise, one of her co-stars from Sense and Sensibility, who “picked up the pieces and put them back together,” according to Thompson. She addressed Wise, her current husband, and expressed her love towards him.
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“I’ve learned more from my second marriage just by being married. As my mother says, ‘the first twenty years are the hardest.’”
Thompson was still depressed when she got into a relationship with Wise, but the English actor and producer helped her find her way out through all her battles, and the couple is now living a happily married life together for the past 19 years with two children as well.
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Source: The New Yorker
