Emma Thompson: 'Both times I had to do the Oscars, I got seriously ill'

The Oscars are just around the corner. While film enthusiasts are all set to find out if their favourite movie will take home any trophies, not everyone finds the award ceremony to be a harbinger of happiness. Two-time Academy Award winner Emma Thompson is one of them. The Harry Potter star said that campaigning for the Oscars, when she was in contention, made her “seriously ill”. Thompson made the revelations about the darker side of the Oscar campaigns in an interview with the Radio Times.

“Both times I had to do the Oscars I got seriously ill,” Thompson said, adding that she “found the pressure and glare of it too much. It’s astonishing – and then afterwards you want to lie down in a dark room. You think, ‘Please don’t ask me any questions or make me talk about myself.’ I quickly developed a sort of allergy to that part of the job. I’m lucky – I think it must be awful if you’re James Bond,” the Sense and Sensibility actor said.

Thompson also opened up about how she got into acting. The Love Actually star revealed that she was first inspired by Racine’s Andromaque, which she watched multiple times when she was 16. She even wrote to her father, stating that she wanted to do something in the field (acting).

Thompson has been nominated for the Academy Awards five times and won twice- in 1993 for Howards End and in 1996 for Sense and Sensibility.