Emma Thompson stars in Netflix’s new film “Matilda,” primarily based on the musical of the identical identify which, in flip, relies upon Roald Dahl’s 1988 novel. In the movie, Thompson stars as Miss Agatha Trunchbull, the devious, horrible headmistress of Matilda’s college who brazenly hates the youngsters she’s in control of. Miss Trunchbull has a number of songs within the present, which could go away viewers questioning if Thompson did her personal singing for the half. Yes, Thompson is absolutely singing in “Matilda.”
Thompson and the remainder of the forged had been really live-singing on set, she mentioned throughout a Dec. 7 interview on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon.” During her look, the host performed a clip of her singing “The Smell of Rebellion,” throughout which she climbs a big construction. She defined, “That final observe, my legs had been shaking as a result of I used to be on prime of that 80 foot construction with actually nothing however a small wire holding me to the factor and I assumed, ‘Please do not.’ But there’s nothing you are able to do. You simply hit the observe and go for it.” She additionally sings the tune “The Hammer” within the movie.
Thompson’s musical chops really run very deep. Way again in 1985, her massive break got here when she starred within the 1985 West End revival of the musical “Me and My Girl.” And again in 2017, she performed Mrs. Potts within the live-action “Beauty and the Beast.” Thompson-as-Potts sings a number of occasions within the movie, together with performing the title tune.
Director Matthew Warchus advised the LA Times on Dec. 14 about casting Thompson, “We wanted any individual who was an ideal dramatic and comedic actress and will additionally sing. But we additionally wanted somebody who may convey that, on the core of all of Trunchbull’s exaggerations, is a crushingly low vanity.”
“Trunchbull was clearly an enormous, tall youngster who was very aggressive, and she or he was simply horribly handled when she was little,” Thompson mentioned in a TheaterMania interview on Dec. 9. “So, it isn’t youngsters she hates; it is her personal vulnerability. It’s her personal youngster inside. As quickly as I obtained maintain of that concept, it was a lot simpler.” She known as herself a “softy” and defined that moving into the function was undoubtedly a “problem.” “She’s fairly an enormous character to drag off and I actually did not know whether or not I used to be gonna be capable of do it,” she added.
The different hardest half, she mentioned, was that the youngsters weren’t in any respect terrified of her. “Apart from the rest for them, I symbolize Nanny McPhee, so they simply all ran in the direction of me going ‘Nanny McPhee! Nanny McPhee!'” she advised TheaterMania, referencing the 2005 youngsters’s movie. “And Matthew Warchus saved saying, ‘Could you please cease hugging the kids? They’re alleged to be fearful of you.’ It did not work. But it did not should work, as a result of youngsters are essentially the most great actors. They did not have to be actually fearful of me, as a result of they had been completely able to performing it. So we had been secure.”
“Matilda” is in restricted theaters now and begins streaming on Netflix on Dec. 25.
