Emma Thompson gushes over Chris Hemsworth and his muscles

I mean, I didn't go Chris Hemsworth route, you know, because I just thought I was going to stop somewhere. But I love Chris, actually. Hi, darling. He's got such great arms. Emma Thompson, welcome back to Hart's Evening Show. Are you well? I'm very well. Thank you for having me. It's an absolute pleasure. It's nice to be here indoors where it's nice and warm and comfortable because in your new film, Dead of Winter, it looks flippin' freezing all the time from beginning to end. It was flippin' freezing. Yes, it was. I arrived in Finland a month before to acclimatise to minus 29 degrees was the day I arrived. And I realised actually, oh, oh, that was the feeling. It was just, oh, this is cold. Proper cold. Proper cold. We have no idea. You don't know until you get to it. You go, oh, my God, this is, I can't, hang on, my teeth are frozen. Anyway, so I put that costume on that she wears all the way through the film and I just marched about outside just getting used to it. It took a long time. So do you end up becoming one with the cold or do you have like someone stood just off camera with like a blanket and a flask of tea the entire time? Well, it depends where you are. If you're right in the middle of a frozen lake, you can't have someone just off camera because there's a drone so everyone can be seen. I think what's important to remember is there's nowhere to go. There's no nice warm caravan to go to or nice hotel just right there where you can just go in and warm up. You had to acclimatise and deal with the cold from the beginning of the day and to the end. And so did the crew. So we were all, yeah, I mean, constantly you can get a hot drink. Absolutely. Blanket's not going to help you much, frankly. You know what I mean? It's like dream on. And we kept on losing. Members of the crew would just fall into snow drift, step in the wrong direction and go eight feet down in the snow. I mean, it was a very strange and magical, but at the same time challenging environment. But it informed all of us, all our work. Sounds like an incredible challenge. And as well as there being amazing performances in this, the physical performances are really impressive. I've heard you say you pulled pretty much every muscle in your body. How did you go about to prepare for what was essentially going to be this huge workout? I did a lot of working out. Yeah, I tried to get as strong as I could get. I went to the Blooming Gym like we all do when you've got to prep for something like that. I mean, I didn't go Chris Hemsworth route, you know, because I just thought I was going to stop somewhere. But I love Chris. He's got such great arms. But I did try to get as strong. You can't really prepare for the cold, but you can get your body as ready as you can. The thing is that there's no way you can't practice all of that action in a safe studio environment. You're doing it all on ice. And ice is not only slippy, but also very hard. So when you fall over, if you fall slightly wrong, you just hurt yourself. And if you don't warm up or you don't warm up properly, and you set off running up a hill without warming up, you pull your muscles. And some parts of me still haven't recovered. But that's because I started an action career at the age of 66, which is really bloody stupid. The usual route. Just dim, dim, dim, dim. Your character Barb has this very deep and emotional connection to this lake and this part of Minnesota. Yeah. Do you have a place like that in the world that you either visit, maybe a place that you think about and makes you quite misty eyed, a bit nostalgic, somewhere in the world that holds a lot of fond memories for you? That's Scotland. Wow. The whole of Scotland. So not the whole of Scotland, no. We have a place that my mum and dad bought when I was three months old. I think that the places like that in our lives are in our DNA, the nature places. If we're lucky enough, and so many people aren't lucky. But if we're lucky enough to have a place that's a natural world that we've been able to grow up in, been able to be free in, as Barb has, that stays with you, that forms you in a way that and strengthens you and gives you a kind of resilience that nothing else can give you. My special place is Southend-on-Sea. Yes, yes, I have. That's where I used to be taken to the seaside when I was a child. Really? Yes. 50 million years ago. But there was still horses and cars. Southend holds a great warm space in my heart too, actually. Do you ever get the doughnuts off the conveyor belt? Obviously. I shouldn't have said that. I'm now craving a doughnut. I know, absolutely. Me too. We don't quit is an incredible motto that Barb likes to live by. Do you have one in real life that you try and live by at least? Well, I try and laugh in the face of disaster. It's quite a good way of, that's your first instinct. You know, when really bad things happen, just laugh about it first. You can deal with all the grief and the trauma later. But yeah, laughter is a kind of hugely valuable part of life. It's such an essential part of everything that I do. And that's one of the reasons why I took this job, because the script is very funny, as well as dark and difficult and dangerous. It's also, I wouldn't have been able to do that if there wasn't so much humour in that Minnesotan life. She's even, when she's sewing herself up, there's a sort of very painful sequence. She's even making a joke about that as she's doing it, just to help herself, help herself survive it. Barb finds herself in a situation, she really has to step up, people are counting on her. I reckon you would be a really good emergency contact for a friend, if that makes sense. Have you ever needed to spring into action for a mate, maybe cover their tracks, maybe even lie for them? Oh my gosh, what an unexpected question. I am a good person to go to, absolutely. I mean, sometimes though, I find someone will come to you with something and my immediate reaction is to do something, to act. And actually, what is better is to listen and just wait for a moment before you leap into action. Listen first, act later. I really like that. I'm getting some gems today, thank you so much. I read today, it's 15 weeks to go until Christmas, which sounds bonkers. Oh my gosh, I can't believe you brought that up. It was weird to say. Get out. Merry Christmas. I've got a theory. I reckon you're a really good gift giver. What do you reckon is the best gift you've ever given somebody? I am a really, really good gift giver. You are so right. I am actually, even I know. Even I know that. And modest as well. And modest as well with it. No, it's actually one of the things I'm genuinely proud of that I'm very good at it. I really love thinking of interesting things. I do remember at the end of Sense and Sensibility giving our third AD a unicycle because he had expressed a real desire. That was a good moment. It's nice to surprise people as well. And my husband, recently, I brought tears to his eyes by presenting him with a long handled chainsaw that you can operate from like five metres long. He just actually cried. He's really into landscaping? He's just into chainsaws. Emma Thompson, always a pleasure, always unexpected. Always a pleasure, never a chore. Thank you so much. Get out. You've said Christmas. You're fired. Bye-bye.