Emma Thompson has expressed her surprise at how often fans want to discuss her relatively minor role in the Harry Potter film universe.
The 67-year-old Sense and Sensibility star played the eccentric Professor Sybill Trelawney in three films in the popular franchise: 2004’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, 2007’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and 2011’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.
Speaking during an appearance on the Smartless podcast, co-host Sean Hayes expressed his love of the films and confirmed the name of the character with Thompson who joked: “She said, fatigued.”
Speaking more about the character, known for her thick-lensed glasses, Thompson said: “I think she’s definitely nearly blind, can’t see anything. And obviously deeply neurotic because she can see sometimes whether people are, you know, have the grim or not.”
Referring to the podcast’s hosts Hayes, Jason Bateman and Will Arnett, Thompson added: “So, I mean, honestly, in my quite long career, given the fact that I’m good 10 years older than all of you guys, I have done many, many parts and I’ve spent about 30 days on Harry Potter in my whole life, you know. So, it’s kind of a strange thing to do because it’s become such, this huge phenomenon. And that’s a lot of the time, that’s what people are very drawn to.”
Thompson went on to say that she takes acting in films for young audiences seriously, explaining: “I always consider children to be the sacred audience. They’re the people we need to make the best of our work for because it’s the first time that they see something. It needs to be so, so good.”
A campaign by The Age Without Limits found that just five of the 100 highest-grossing films of the past three years have starred a woman older than 60.
Films were also four times more likely to feature a talking animal as its lead than an older woman.
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Responding to the findings, Thompson called on directors to be more representative of audiences.
“Women are half the population and we get older,” said the actor. “So where are the stories about us? The older we get, the more interesting we are.”
She continued: “I want to see more films centre aging women. We are compelling, relatable and overdue for centre stage. Older women don’t need permission to exist on screen. They already exist in the world – cinema just needs to catch up.”