Emma Thompson finds pleasure — and the female gaze — in ‘Good Luck to You, Leo Grande’

Dame Emma Thompson DBE, 63, was the first person to receive Oscars for both acting (“Howards End,” 1993) and writing (“Sense and Sensibility,” 1996). Brains, empathy, and chops: That’s what’s always defined this British mother of two married to actor Greg Wise. In her career, she was doubly blessed early on as the daughter of actors Phyllida Law and Eric Thompson, contributing to the Cambridge Footlights alongside Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, and Robbie Coltrane.

Post university, she broke out in the 1985 West End musical “Me and My Girl.” Thompson solidified her standing in the early ′90s, collaborating with her then-husband Kenneth Branagh on “Henry V” and “Much Ado about Nothing,” among other films. Whether refreshing literary adaptations, jumping feet first into the romantic staple “Love, Actually,” or writing and starring in the “Nanny McPhee” series, she embraces her craft wholeheartedly and with a sense of humor.

In her latest film, “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” she pushes the envelope yet again, playing Nancy Stokes, a widowed teacher, who pays a sex worker, Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack), to initiate her into the carnal pleasure that had been lacking in her marriage. Thompson strips down emotionally and physically, and, ultimately, faces her naked self in the mirror. She deserves a medal for bravery in that moment, but where would we pin it?

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Q. Please, discuss female pleasure and Nancy’s world.

A. Nancy came from a world I’m familiar with. I grew up in London, but she’s come from outside London. London was the boiling cauldron of the sexual revolution in the ′60s, but it wasn’t probably anywhere else. So, Nancy is my age, early 60s, grew up in a suburban part of the UK . . . went to a nice girl’s school, probably Church of England and had an ordinary childhood.

Q. But isn’t something missing for Nancy despite the stability?

A. She didn’t have lots of lovers. She met her husband early on, got married, and had children. She was a teacher, and he was probably a teacher as well. And they were pillars of the community.

Q. How were their marital relations?

A. The fact that she’s never had any sexual pleasure is neither here nor there. It’s of no importance to anyone, least of all her. Now this is a generational thing, but it’s also part of women’s experience, because it is not part of our mainstream discussion that women should, could, ought to have sexual pleasure . . . because we shouldn’t exhibit appetites at all because that makes us uncontrollable, and that’s not what you want in your females.

Q. Was that how you were raised?

A. The notion of female pleasure is actually very young, in the same way as the notion of female education is young in our minds. I recognize Nancy’s attitude. She didn’t grow up thinking, “Well, what do I want?” Very few women do. They don’t ask themselves what they want because it’s not a question that anyone asks them. If I ask my mother, “What do you want?” she says, “I don’t know what I want.” My grandmother stood in our house and actually said to me, “I feel sorry for men because they have to do it. They have to have sex.” But in a way, it’s such a tragedy. We’ve ostracized it, made it dirty. We don’t respect sexual pleasure. And we certainly don’t think that women deserve it.

Q. Isn’t owning one’s sexuality key to the notion of women’s liberation?

A. You can look back at that part of our lives and go, hum, yes there is a liberation. But there was also a pressure and an expectation that we should be willing to put out. The notion benefited men, because the conversations around sex were about women becoming like men, instead of us looking at how our sexuality works. It’s more elusive, more dynamically emotional and connected to intimacy and to talk, I think, certainly in my experience and the other women that I know.

Q. So, you don’t buy the idea of a sexual revolution in the ′60s and ′70s?

A. The sexual revolution is a kind of mythologized version of female liberation. Seriously. This whole thing of sexual liberation for women actually is bollocks. You know, we’re still punished for it. Look at the level of sexual violence. Legislative bodies in our countries are not fit for the purpose when it comes to sexual violence. We’re still in the dark ages, we’re still barely out of the slime when it comes to these issues. I really do believe that.

Q. How did you feel, knowing from the beginning, that you’d eventually have to face a mirror nude on camera?

A. Well, a mirror’s a funny thing isn’t it? Obviously, it’s the reflective surface, but it’s a hard, unforgiving surface. I’m not sure about the wisdom of ever having to introduce mirrors into human life, but that’s a philosophical question. What the movie addresses is the fact that women don’t like standing in front of mirrors looking at their bodies. I mean, unless perhaps they’ve got what’s considered perfect in our messed up view of female bodies. It’s something that’s rare, very hard to achieve . . . impossible, actually.

Q. The movie ends on a distinctly positive note. What should the audience consider as they watch you study your reflection?

A. We live for a short time in these bodies, and one of the most beautiful things we can do for them spiritually as well as physically and emotionally is to have sexual pleasure. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Interview was edited and condensed.