It's that slightly grown-up but very mad writing that's always appealed to me 
Following an Oscar win for her 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense And Sensibility and a Best Writing Emmy nomination for teleplay Wit (2001), Emma Thompson returned to the keyboard for Nanny McPhee. Of course she's best known for appearing in front of the camera and so takes the title role in this offbeat yarn as a mysterious nanny hired to tame seven naughty children.
The Nurse Matilda series, on which this film is based, is not well known. So what is it about the books that inspired you?
I think I liked them because they're not patronising. They're very well written and they're very funny and they're kind of grown-up in their funniness - but still extremely appealing to children. They reminded me a little bit of my dad's [Eric Thompson] work on The Magic Roundabout which was appealing to children even though they didn't know what the word mollusc meant or what Dougal meant when he was rushing around tree going, "I'm going to take this up with the government!" It's that slightly grownup but very mad writing that's always appealed to me and it was, I suppose, an attempt to make something that was as enjoyable for an adult to watch as it is for a child.
Obviously you've changed the name of the heroine, otherwise how faithful is this adaptation?
The only two things that really come directly from the books are Nanny McPhee, or Nurse Matilda, and Aunt Adelaide [Angela Lansbury]. There is certainly a character called Evangeline, but she's completely different in the books and there are so many children in the books you can't count them. Also there is a Mrs Brown. There's also no plot in the books per se. There's lots of story and lots of wonderful characters, but there's no plot so all the story had to be invented.
Is that why it took so long for you to write? I understand it took five years...
Seven! That's to do with a lot of things. I mean I was doing other stuff in between obviously, including being pregnant and having a child and all that sort of thing, and I was acting because I wouldn't be able to support myself otherwise. But it鈥檚 also because screenplays for me take a long time because I need to put them away for six months before I rewrite. So, I'll do a draft and then leave it because otherwise I get very confused about what needs to be cut and what needs to be changed. I think screenplays should take a long time, because they're very difficult, very specific things to write. It's quite a concentrated form and so it's a process of distillation that takes a long time. Each time you come back to it, you chuck out a whole load of stuff but the residue from that draft has been left and like that you slowly build this thing that hopefully has some depth to it.
It is a very emotional story, but it's funny as well. It must be tricky as a writer to balance those, because sometimes one can cancel out the other...
Yes, that's right. Absolutely. During shooting as well, it was difficult to get that balance right. You go directly from a slapstick moment where Colin Firth ends up with great mounds of porridge on his jacket and straight to a very sad moment when he has to tell the truth to his children about their situation, which is terribly upsetting. So that kind of juxtaposition, which is so much part of life and which kids can so understand, was central to the feeling that I wanted to get. Life turns on a sixpence, it really does, and we're not very good at those sudden changes in our lives but that's what life is.
It's quite a dark story in its examination of death, but that's not unusual for children's fiction. Why do you think it holds such fascination for children?
Because I think children understand death better than grown-ups and they don't think it's morbid or ghoulish. That they take pleasure in it in some way is certainly true because there is something sort of delicious about death. I don't quite know how to explain that, but I remember my own fascination with it and because I experienced death quite early on, and quite a few times, I find it an entirely acceptable notion. I think a lot of people, when they get older, don't want to think about death, because that might bring it on or something and, as we know, in America some people think death is sort of optional really. Whereas, I think death is a part of everyday life and we should be able to deal with it much better and not push it aside as though it's something unpleasant and disgusting. It's not. Death is life's last great adventure as my father said, before he died at the age of 52.
When you came to be in front of the camera, did you have to rediscover Nanny McPhee through all that horrible makeup?
Yes, absolutely. It was very liberating actually. I think in this case it was really about putting on the character with the makeup. I really wanted to play her but I didn't know how I would do it until I knew what she would look like. When I finally got it all on it was strange because I was completely unrecognisable - I mean the children in the film didn't even recognise me. My daughter saw right through it, but when I was still trying to figure out how to do it, one person said, "It's like mask work." Actually that was a very good note because an actor is tempted to move their face around a lot, but this taught me to be stiller.
Is it a daunting prospect for an actor to have to be still?
Yes, but I think acting is mostly about being able to listen and that's something Nanny McPhee really does. Also there's so much activity around her that it probably persuaded me that stillness was by contrast the only route.
What's next for you?
I'm going to make a film that Nick Hornby and I have been writing for five years called Fast Forward. Also I've got another film coming up in November called Stranger Than Fiction, which is a fantastic script. That's Will Ferrell, Dustin Hoffman and Queen Latifah.
It must be quite an experience working with Will Ferrell...
But he's playing straight. He and Queen Latifah are playing straight and me and Dustin are playing funny. It's curious in a way that they're using the straight actors in the opposite way and the comic actors in the opposite way, but that鈥檚 one of the best things about it. Will is fantastic as well - he's a great actor.
Have you ever thought about directing?
Well, I've often been asked and my answer is always the same. If you can tell me a way of being an effective mother and directing a film at the same time then I鈥檒l do it. And that's when people just look at me and say, "Okay, fair enough. Moving on..."
Nanny McPhee is released in UK cinemas on Friday 21st October 2005.
