Dame Emma Thompson’s Globe-Trotting Guilt Tour: How One Actress Became the Planet’s Favorite Confessional Booth

Emma Thompson, the Oscar-winning auntie you’d trust to babysit the planet, is currently orbiting the globe again—this time not in a flying umbrella but on a carbon-conscious press tour that feels suspiciously like penance for the entire British Empire. From Mumbai multiplexes to Munich talk shows, she is promoting “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” (the rare sex-positive film whose title sounds like a hedge fund that just lost your pension). Audiences on every continent are discovering that the woman who once taught Hugh Grant how to emote is now teaching the rest of us how to admit we’re terrified of intimacy, aging, and—because why stop there—species extinction.

In Manila, critics hail her as the last sane Briton; in São Paulo, she’s the poster child for post-colonial guilt wrapped in cashmere. Meanwhile, back in London, the tabloids can’t decide whether to knight her or deport her for suggesting that maybe—just maybe—private jets are a bit passé in the age of boiling oceans. The cognitive dissonance is delicious. One Daily Mail headline oscillates between “National Treasure” and “Hypocrite on a Bicycle,” proving once again that the British press would heckle Gandhi for wearing sandals made by non-unionized children.

Globally, Thompson’s trajectory mirrors the broader Western scramble for absolution. After decades of exporting costume dramas and actual plunder, the U.K. now exports middle-aged contrition in sensible flats. In Nairobi’s newest cineplex, viewers cheer when she tells the hired escort, “I want to be thoroughly, properly, professionally fucked.” It’s the line heard ’round the world: a colonial power politely requesting to be ravished by the very demographic it once subjugated. Somewhere in the afterlife, empire winces and adjusts its monocle.

Of course, the real joke is on us. While Thompson advocates for climate reparations, Netflix’s algorithm quietly serves up “Love Actually” to 190 countries every Christmas, ensuring that the Union Jack remains the planet’s preferred comfort blanket. Soft power has never been softer—or more hypoallergenic. The same actress who berates oil executives at Davos still moves merchandise: her character’s sensible cardigan from “Nanny McPhee” is currently trending on TikTok, stitched in Bangladeshi sweatshops that run on diesel generators. Global capitalism, ever the obliging dominatrix, is only too happy to flog you the handcuffs you asked for.

Still, her timing is impeccable. Just as COP delegates run out of synonyms for “catastrophic,” Thompson lands in Qatar—yes, Qatar—invoking Shakespeare to lecture sheikhs on fossil fuels. The irony is so dense you could frack it. Security politely confiscates the eco-banners, but they let her keep the Damehood, proof that even absolute monarchies enjoy a bit of theatre. Meanwhile, European energy ministers tweet selfies with her like she’s the last ration of moral authority left on the continent. Spoiler: she probably is.

What does it all mean? On one level, Thompson is simply doing what aging stars have always done: leveraging fame to stay relevant. On another, she’s a walking Rorschach test for a planet that wants absolution without inconvenience. Canadians applaud her stance on Arctic drilling while sipping coffee heated by tar-sands gas. Japanese fans buy tote bags emblazoned with her face, conveniently ignoring the plastic lining. Even the Swedes—those virtuous Vikings—stream her films on servers cooled by Baltic seawater that won’t be cold much longer.

In the end, perhaps the greatest service Dame Emma provides is reminding us that sincerity and hypocrisy can coexist in one exquisitely tailored pantsuit. She is both prophet and product, scolding and souvenir. And as the lights dim from Lagos to Lima, we line up to watch her confront her own complicity on screen—because paying fifteen bucks to feel slightly less awful about ourselves is the closest thing the 21st century has to communion.