Emma Thompson reflected on her aging body in a new personal essay for The Guardian.- In the piece, the actress compares her body to those of her 22-year-old daughter and elderly mother.
Emma Thompson wrote about her aging body in a poignant new personal essay for the Guardian, saying that she's both "grateful" for it and "depressed" about certain aspects of it.
In the piece, the "Love Actually" star contrasts her body with those of her 22-year-old daughter, Gaia, and her 89-year-old mother, actress Phyllida Law.
"My daughter has tattoos. I like them, which surprises me. I understand the urge to mark life's more seismic events upon your body," Thompson said of Gaia's body art.
As for her elderly mother, Thompson wrote that watching her mother age "is a daily learning, a meditation."
"She taught me to walk when I was a baby, and now, she teaches me how I will walk when I am old: how to reach for this, bend for that, move around the obstacles like an ancient, patient stream," Thompson said of Law.
According to Thompson, "living between these bodies is an odd mixture of joy and grief."
"I exist between them. I'm grateful I can still get up a hill and I'm depressed about my thighs," she concluded.
Thompson has been open about her struggles with body image as an older actress, especially for her new film "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande."
In the film, which premiered at the virtual Sundance Film Festival in January, Thompson plays Nancy, a retired British school teacher who hires a male escort, played by Daryl McCormack. There are several nude scenes in the film, which Thompson, McCormack, and director Sophie Hyde prepared for by stripping down completely during the rehearsal process.
"It's very challenging to be nude at 62," Thompson said of her work in "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande."