"I have this habit of continuity. I love continuity. The continuum of life: knowing people for a long, long, long time gives me great pleasure...You're allowed to say 'arse' on Desert Island Discs?! Times have changed!
I think it was John Ruskin said - he was talking about capitalism - and he said, the acquisition of each new thing just engenders a new form of weariness.
[Of her dad] He was funny. And very witty people are often cruel as well. And he knew that. But very funny too.
[Of being stuck on the island] I'll have to make relationships with the island, within the island, and then within those relationships tell stories. I think that's how I'll survive it, is by creating stories.
[Of acting] I find it joyous and life-giving and fun even if it's traumatic. An escape from myself, which I'm ashamed to say I enjoy very much.
Q: What are you escaping?
Oh, you know. {laughs} Me! Me! The voices in my head. The constant 'must do better', 'must try harder' 'plus you're too fat and you're not really a very good mother'. That punitive conscious is part of my psychiatric problem {laughs}. Not to put too fine a point on it, listeners!
Q. And as a loved daughter, where did that come from? Where did the 'not good enough' come from? Where did that voice originate?
I don't know. {exhales} I mean I think that mum and dad both came from the post-war semi-puritanical upbringing. My mum's Scottish, so the Presbyterian thing is strong within us. The force is strong! I think it was a creation of my own making and was always there. Something to do with justice and I couldn't cope with suffering. Of any kind. I had to put it right somehow. And of course that's very arrogant to think that you can alleviate the world's suffering. You can't. And so one of the most important things for me to learn over this life that I've had is that I can't save the world. I can do what I can do. And that has to be enough... It's just the way I am. It's, it's it's never quite enough."
From Desert Island Discs with Emma Thompson.
Emma on Ellen. And on Cheers. Brilliant.
I had no idea her dad was responsible for bringing The Magic Roundabout to my childhood. I'm thrilled. And I already love her mother.
Wonderful woman.
