In Good Luck to You, Emma Thompson’s new flick: Greetings and Best Wishes, Leo Grande is a fictional character. Emma Thompson portrays a lady who decides to go on a sexual self-discovery and acceptance trip.
Nancy Stokes (Thompson), a recently widowed woman who is reckoning with her marriage that lasted three decades without her experiencing a single orgasm, and Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack), the young sex worker she has hired to teach her what she’s been missing, take place almost entirely inside one room.
The Oscar and BAFTA winner spoke with All Things Considered on the thrill of portraying a lady on screen who is solely concerned with her own pleasure.
Mary Louise Kelly’s interview has been minimally modified for length and clarity. There is some adult content in it.
Why did she wish to portray this role?
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She’s bliss, and she was bliss from start to finish. She’s a decent, normal, and responsible lady. She speaks for a large number of women in my nation.
She’s generally funny accidentally.
However, the circumstance in which she finds herself was irresistible to me.
It was so out of the ordinary; I’d never seen these two folks in such a predicament before. It’s almost irresistibly tasty.
It’s a delight. It is quite pleasurable.
Despite this, there are a plethora of talks that can arise from it, all of which delve deeply into the female and male sex experiences.
What strikes a chord with women who have seen the film
What appeals to me is the notion that female orgasm must be performed in some way. Because the female orgasm is there to persuade the man that he’s done it, that he’s accomplished what he set out to do for the lady.
To be brutally honest, a large number of guys are unconcerned about or uninterested in female orgasms. It’s surprisingly un-emotionally developed. Nonetheless, we all have access to a shared experience that leads to that kind of intense and releasing pleasure.
And it would be good if we could find a means to get there that was a little more deft.
And Leo is a master of his craft. What makes the narrative so fantastic is that Leo isn’t there to give Nancy orgasm; that isn’t his goal.
Another thing that makes the picture so appealing is Leo’s interest in pleasure for its own sake, and a sense that it’s something that everyone can have but that many people find difficult to achieve, as we all know.
As a result, for Leo, the study of pleasure, particularly female pleasure, is inextricably linked to the idea of making the world a better place.
And I believe he is correct in his assessment. “Oh, imagine how much less BS there would be,” he says. I can also envision how much less sexual violence would exist.
On the significance of nudity and the representation of an older woman at ease in her own skin
It’s revolutionary because most of the bodies we choose to portray on TV have been altered in some way.
They’re either bodies that adhere to what we’ve chosen is the ideal, which is difficult for most people to reach, which is why most women will either look in the mirror or not look in the mirror because they feel disdain or hatred, or at the very least unhappiness.
Surprisingly, I drifted off into the past. “How am I going to do this?” I wondered.
I have no idea how to achieve this because I am incapable of doing so.
But how is Nancy going to get there? What exactly is going on inside of her? And I decided that she was suddenly looking at her body without any filters since she had experienced this ecstasy.
For the first time, she sees it as her home, the place where she lives, the place where she can find joy on her alone or with others if she so desires.
And, as I was trying to figure out how I wanted her to stand, I went through all of the old medieval paintings of Eve in the Garden of Eden, thinking to myself, “Well, she wasn’t self-conscious.”
All of the artists were men, yet all of the medieval Eves and Adams just stood with one leg slightly bent and relaxed.
And it was from this that I drew my idea for her position.
On how the role influenced or freed her in her personal life
I believe what it did for me was to remind me of how much time non-acceptance of one’s body is a waste of time. It’s a waste of time on our part. And I’m sure I’ve squandered a lot of time.
Of course, that isn’t my fault in the least. Because the imagery that we are surrounded by is unavoidable.
They provided me the chance to put my money where my mouth is and allow a film to be made that I hope will be of some help to young women and young mothers whose 8-year-olds are expressing things like, “I don’t like my thighs.”
So I’m hoping that everything about it will offer people a sense of relief and a desire to love themselves, their bodies, and what they can do for them rather than constantly wanting them to be something else.
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