Emma Thompson stars alongside Lily James in the romantic comedy What’s Love Got To Do With It? Thompson plays an eccentric mother who does her best to help her daughter find love, which is unknowingly staring her in the face. How do you find lasting love in today’s world? That is the magic question.
What attracted you to this film? Was it the writing or the cast?
It was the writing. I thought that character of somebody who was sort of inadvertently completely inappropriate most of the time was just so relatable to me. I think I could be there if I hadn’t grown up in London surrounded by many different cultures. I went to a primary school. It was 55 different languages spoken. So I was really lucky, ’cause I grew up in London, and I think that made my view of things much wiser. So I loved the London multicultural thing of it, I really did. I just thought that she was so funny. She reminded me of the first sketch I ever did when I was 14 years old. It’s fascinating, isn’t it? What you are exposed to that gives you your sort of culture.
Did you learn anything new regarding the cultural aspect of families from the film?
Yeah. Because every family, if we’re really honest, every family has its own culture. Even if they’ve come from the same bloody culture, they’ve got different cultures. I think that’s a really great point, actually. It’s sort of very much Romeo and Juliet, same country, same town, different cultures, you know. What I also like about the movie is that it’s basically just about this little low adjoining wall where we humans place tiny little boundaries between us. The culture of family, friendship, how we are friends, and how we fall in love surrounds us daily.
What’s Love Got To Do With It? is in theaters now.
