1
Can he love her? Can the soul really be satisfied with such polite affections? To love is to burn - to be on fire, like Juliet or Guinevere or Eloise...Emma Thompson
2
Quick dinner with. . Ang [Lee] and his wife Jane who's visiting with the children for a while. We talked about her work as a microbiologist and the behaviour of the epithingalingie under the influence of cholesterol. She's fascinated by cholesterol. Says it's very beautiful: bright yellow. She says Ang is wholly uninterested. He has no idea what she does. I check this out for myself. 'What does Jane do?' I ask.' Science, ' he says vaguely.Emma Thompson
3
Hugh Laurie (playing Mr. Palmer) felt the line 'Don't palm all your abuses [of language upon me]' was possibly too rude. 'It's in the book, ' I said. He didn't hit me.Emma Thompson
4
Shooting Willoughby carrying Marianne up the path.... Male strength -- the desire to be cradled again? ... I'd love someone to pick me up and carry me off. Frightening. Lindsay assures me I'd start to fidget after a while. She's such a comfort.Emma Thompson
5
Lindsay [Doran] goes round the table and introduces everyone -- making it clear that I am present in the capacity of writer rather than actress, therefore no one has to be too nice to me.Emma Thompson
6
Difficult for actors to extemporise in nineteenth-century English. Except for Robert Hardy and Elizabeth Spriggs, who speak that way anyway.Emma Thompson
7
I ask Laurie if it's possible to get trained fish. Lindsay says this is how we know I've never produced a movie.Emma Thompson
8
The fire alarm went off. Fire engines came racing; we all rushed out on the gravel drive, everyone thinking it was us. In fact, one of the elderly residents of Saltram had left a pan on the oven in her flat. Apparently this happens all the time. The tenant in question is appearing as an extra -- playing one of the cooks.Emma Thompson
9
Paparazzi arrived for Hugh [Grant]. We had to stand under a tree and smile for them. Photographer: 'Hugh, could you look less -- um --'Hugh: 'Pained?Emma Thompson
10
Jane reminds us that God is in his heaven, the monarch on his throne and the pelvis firmly beneath the ribcage. Apparently rock and roll liberated the pelvis and it hasn't been the same since.Emma Thompson
11
I seem finally to have stopped worrying about Elinor, and age. She seems now to be perfectly normal -- about twenty-five, a witty control freak. I like her but I can see how she would drive you mad. She's just the sort of person you'd want to get drunk, just to make her giggling and silly.Emma Thompson
12
We've hired the calmest babies in the world to play the hysterical Thomas. One did finally start to cry but stopped every time Chris [Newman (assistant director)] yelled 'Action'.... Babies smiled all afternoon. Buddhist babies. They didn't cry once. We, however, were all in tears by 5 p.m.Emma Thompson
13
(On period costume posture coaching:)" We all stand about like parboiled spaghetti being straightened out.Emma Thompson
14
Our first point of discussion is the hunt. (...) My idea is to start the film with an image of the vixen locked out of her lair which has been plugged up. Her terror as she's pursued across the country. This is a big deal. It means training a fox from birth or dressing up a dog to look like a fox. Or hiring David Attenbrorough, who probably knows a few foxes well enough to ask a favour.Emma Thompson
15
Shooting Willoughby carrying Marianne up the path. They did it four times. 'Faster, ' said Ang [Lee]. They do it twice more. 'Don't pant so much, ' said Ang. Greg [Wise (playing Willoughby)], to his great credit, didn't scream.Emma Thompson