"Donald Trump asked me out after I divorced Kenneth Branagh."

LocarnoPerhaps because we mostly associate her with British period dramas, it's surprising to see in person that Emma Thompson is one of the funniest stars on the scene today. In the conversation she shared with the audience this Saturday on the occasion of receiving the Leopard Club Award from the Locarno Film Festival, she recalled her beginnings in the world of comedy. "When I was young, I didn't want to be an actress like my mother (Phyllida Law) because it seemed like a very precarious job. But I became a comedian. I did stand-up comedy at political demonstrations, full of jokes about Margaret Thatcher. And about herpes. It was a bit of a fluke to get work as an actress. I hadn't sought it out, and sometimes what turns out best is exactly what you don't look for," she says.

The actress presented her new film, "The Leopard Club" at the Swiss festival. Dead of winter, by Brian Kirk, one thriller dramatic that caught her attention because of the profile of the protagonist, "one of those women you rarely see on screen, an older woman, normal and at the same time heroic." "In fact, I think most women are like that, great everyday heroines. We have no choice, because we live in a patriarchy," says Thompson, who is as forceful in her political assessments as she is hilarious when it comes to telling multiple anecdotes from her career. Like when she remembers how she was hired to write the version of Sense and Sensibility by Ang Lee, which she also starred in, and where she met her current husband, actor Greg Wise. "I was working on a sketch TV show, and I did one about a Victorian-era woman who goes to see her mother because she's having trouble with her husband. You see the husband has a bug stuck to his body and he doesn't know what it is. He tries to explain it to her, but she doesn't quite understand. It was a sketch about the... Sense and Sensibility He saw it and seemed to think [puts on a male voice]: this woman could adapt Jane Austen. So a joke about an unsatisfactory sex life led me to Sense and sensibility, a movie that changed my life."

Thompson had already gained prestige as an actress, especially from two films, Return to Howards End and What remains of the day, with different points in common. Both are literary adaptations directed by James Ivory, and in both she shares the lead role with Anthony Hopkins, whom she defines as "the best actor" she has ever worked with, "a wonderful person and a great teacher." As for the character in the first film, Margaret Schlegal, the actress confesses that it is the only time she has written to a director to tell him that she knew exactly how to play a character because "she was like all those pioneers who fought for women's education and who we have since forgotten." "With What remains of the day I connected there because my grandmother started working as a maid when she was 13 for a childless couple. It was World War I, and during a Zeppelin bombing raid, she was left alone with the owner, who raped her. He left her pregnant. So, this sexual violence against maids was a way to access surrogacy. But my grandmother kept the child. This marked her for life; she was never completely happy. And I was inspired by her for the character of Miss Kent," she explains.

In 1998, Emma Thompson made the leap to the United States, where she starred in, among other titles, Primary colors, by Mike Nichols. "The main difference between working in Hollywood and in Europe is the relationship with the rest of the crew on a shoot. I like to get to know the people behind the camera, who they are and what they call each other. Because when I know them, I can forget about them while I'm filming. On the other hand, if they seem strange to me, it's harder for me to distance myself from the United States and the technical crew. That's why I prefer to work in Europe," she says. And the actress ends by confessing that during the filming of this movie, one day, while she was in her trailer, she received a call from an unknown number. It was Donald Trump. "I thought it was a joke. But he suggested we have a drink together in one of his splendid mansions. I replied: How kind of you, very grateful, I'll tell you what. I had just divorced [Kenneth Branagh] and I thought this was the way it was going, this was the way Trump was looking for her, this was the way Trump was looking for her, this was the way Trump was looking for her. Imagine, it could have changed the history of the United States!"