Emma Thompson on Donald Trump Call, Harry Potter, Sex Joke: Locarno

Emma Thompson discussed her career, including getting a call from Donald Trump, her days doing stand-up comedy, including jokes about herpes and Margaret Thatcher, Sense and Sensibility, and the Monica Lewinsky scandal playing out during the Primary Colors shoot in Locarno, Switzerland on Saturday.

She appeared in front of a huge and hugely excited crowd after on Friday evening joining the likes of Faye Dunaway, Mia Farrow, Andy García, Adrien Brody, Meg Ryan, Hilary Swank, Daisy Edgar-Jones, and Irène Jacob as a recipient of the Locarno Film Festival‘s Leopard Club Award on the Swiss town’s picturesque Piazza Grande. The Friday evening world premiere and awards ceremony was such a hot ticket in town that security had to turn people away when the square reached capacity.

At Saturday’s talk, all seats were filled well ahead of the event, with more people crowding around outside the seating area to catch a glimpse of the star.

The Monica Lewinsky scandal happened while she made Primary Colors. “Poor Monica,” she said, explaining the atmosphere on set this way: “The thing that we’re making a film about is happening in real life. So that was very, very strange.”

Staying with the topic of U.S. politics, Thompson said:It feels like a long time ago now, doesn’t it? Oh, if only we could just have a nice sex scandal and not all this stuff.“ The audience broke into laughter about the joke that was widely understood as a reference to U.S. President Donald Trump.

Speaking of Trump: Thompson next recalled getting a call from him. “I was in my trailer one day while we were making that movie [Primary Colors], and the phone rang, and it was Donald Trump,” the actress recalled. “I didn’t know the number of the phone. No one had rung me on it before, and I said, ‘Hello.’ ‘Hi, this is Donald Trump here,’ and I thought it was a joke. And then I said, ‘How can I help you?,’ thinking maybe he needed directions.”

Thompson said Trump responded by saying: “I’d love you to come and stay at one of my beautiful places. Maybe we could have dinner.” Her response: “Well, that’s very sweet. Thank you so much. I’ll get back to you.” Continued Thompson: “And then I realized that on that day, my divorce, my divorce decree, you know, the final papers of my divorce had come through. And I thought I bet he’s got people looking for suitable people he could take out on his arm, you know, a nice divorcee. That’s what he was looking for, and he found the number in my trailer. I mean, that’s stalking!”

Concluded Thompson: “But I could have gone on a date with Donald Trump, and then I would have a story to tell. I could have changed the course of American history.”

The star’s work in the Harry Potter films also came up, of course. “This is not really an important part of my creative endeavor,” she said, highlighting that she would typically only come in for a few days of shoots rather than being part of the whole production. “I’m really sorry. I don’t mean to be rude to those of you who like Harry Potter, but you know, I really came in, did a bit with glasses and hair, and then left, having been quite well paid.” She added: “I’m very grateful to them.”

Laughs ensued yet again. Speaking of laughter, Thompson recalled her comedy days.

“When I was a comedian, I wrote a television series, which was a series of comedy sketches,” she also recalled on Saturday. ”One of the sketches was about a Victorian woman who comes home to see her mother, and she’s asking her mother about a problem she’s got with her husband, who appears to have a small creature attached to his body, and she doesn’t know what it is… Of course, he’s talking about his penis, and she has no education at all, she doesn’t know what sex is.”

Concluded Thompson: “It’s about sexual ignorance, but it’s funny. So the producer of Sense and Sensibility saw this sketch and thought, this woman can adapt Jane Austen.” After the audience broke into laughter, the star added: “I think it is a very interesting sort of connection that I wrote a comedy sketch about somebody’s very unfortunate sex life, and that led to Sense and Sensibility. That’s so weird.”

After the British star received the honor, her new film, action-thriller Dead of Winter, directed by Brian Kirk, world premiered on the third evening of the 78th edition of the fest. Written by Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb, the film also stars Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca, Thompson’s daughter Gaia Wise, Lloyd Hutchinson, and Brían F. O’Byrne. Thompson is also an executive producer on it.

Thompson plays a widowed fisherwoman who travels alone through snowbound northern Minnesota and interrupts the kidnapping of a teenage girl. “Hours from the nearest town and with no phone service, she realizes that she is the young girl’s only hope,” reads a synopsis.

On Saturday, Thompson Most women I know are incredibly heroic” and have to be “living in a patriarchy,” she said.

“The one thing that really scared me, genuinely scared me, was not running about, although I did pull every single muscle in my body,” Thompson had told a press conference earlier in the day. Her biggest fear had to do with going under water, she shared.

The Leopard Club, the supporting association of the Locarno Film Festival, presents the Leopard Club Award each year to “an individual whose work in the film industry has left its mark on the collective imagination.”

In unveiling Thompson as this year’s recipient in June, Locarno organizers emphasized: “She is the only person in the history of the Academy Awards to have won for both acting and screenwriting. Thompson’s willingness to take risks with her roles has meant that she has remained a vital force on stage and screen for four decades, a testament to the depth of affection multiple generations of fans hold for her.”

The Locarno festival runs through Aug. 16.