Happy Birthday Suitless: Emma Thompson

Emma Thompson's Oscar win for Howards End was kind of a small glory.  Unassuming, yet iconic, her performance was of a baitless kind.  Certainly, there was a prestige factor being a Merchant/Ivory adaptation of the EM Forrester novel.  But, if you consider that 1) She wasn't a Hollywood star, 2) She was no spring chicken, 3) She had very little name recognition at the time, 4) Her film wasn't a blockbuster, and 5) Her character had none of the affectations (transformation, accent) and plot-line details (rape, biography) that tend to unfairly draw more than its share of attention, her win was a bit ... untraditional.  Granted, she didn't exactly have stiff competition in 1992, she was (barely) the youngest of her lot, and her film was technically a hit (of the art house kind), but there was still a simple beauty in her performance that amazingly translated to a win with the AMPAS.  Her Oscar win for Best Actress was a win for us all.  Today she turns 53 and if she was American, her taxes would be due.

In the late 80s/early 90s, she was known in the British press for her marriage to Kenneth Branagh which bred several professional fruits including Shakespeare adaptations Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing, as well as the over-the-top thriller Dead Again and British TV-miniseries Fortunes of War.  She has received countless critical awards for her work in Impromptu, Peter's Friends, Carrington, The Winter's Guest, Love Actually, Stranger Than Fiction, Last Chance Harvey, Brideshead Revisited and even the Arnold Schwarzenegger pregnancy film Junior.  Earlier in her career, she had her own self-titled variety show and has received accolades in two television productions directed by Mike Nichols: Wit (which she adapted and starred in) and Angels in America.

Emma Thompson looking fabulouso at the
UK premiere of Men in Black 3

After her first Oscar win, Thompson went on to achieve two more Best Actress nominations almost in a row.  Her second for The Remains of the Day arrived the same year she got a supporting nomination for In the Name of the Father.  She was responsible for writing the screenplay which provided her last acting nod--Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility--which helped nab her second Oscar anyway for being the scribe.  She put her pen to more good use and wrote and starred in two installments of her Nanny McPhee franchise (the second of which she served as producer).  Other notable acting credits include Professor Sybill Trelawney in the Harry Potter movies and a subtle Hillary Clinton impersonation in Primary Colors.

A talented actress with a shrewd management team (much like Cate Blanchett after her), this summer she will provide voice work in Brave and appear as Agent O in Men in Black 3 (she had a cameo in Will Smith's I Am Legend).  Later, she'll be seen in a turn as Queen Elizabeth in a TV film, as well as another royal in an Effie Gray adaptation starring Dakota Fanning.  She's married to actor Greg Wise (seven years her junior--go Emma) and they have two children.

[Picture via Lainey Gossip]