Tuesday, 3 October 2006

• Prev
• Next

Emma Thompson: I’ve had depression all my life

Double Oscar winner has battled the blues - and won

Emma Thompson has admitted to suffering from depression since she was a young woman and having a ‘fairly reckless’ attitude to drinking and drugs.

After Emma’s first marriage to actor Kenneth Branagh broke down – and before she met second husband Greg Wise, 40 – she was dogged by feelings of low self-esteem.

‘I’ve certainly had clinical depression,’ she admits. ‘Absolutely I’ve had it before, at regular intervals through my life. I know what that is like.’

Once a smoker, Emma, 47, has now quit and now lives a healthy lifestyle.

‘I don’t smoke,’ she tells The Daily Express, ‘and I don’t take drugs any more, I’m too old for all that anyway, and it would just kill me.’

The success of her good friend Hugh Laurie, star of C5’s House, now brings a smile to her face. ‘I’m just so thrilled that he’s a big star in LA,’ she reveals.

‘You cannot imagine the joy I get when I see his craggy old face on bus stops, it’s fantastic because he’s such an intelligent, wonderful guy.’

Hannah Herbert