‘RUDE’

Emma Thompson: Word ‘Content’ Makes Me Feel Like Stuffing in Sofa Cushion

And she hates filmmakers having to follow formulas.

If you bump into Emma Thompson, please don’t tell her you’re a great fan of her “content.” In fact, best not use that word around her at all—the Oscar-winning British actress says she finds the term insulting. “To hear people talk about ‘content’ makes me feel like the stuffing inside a sofa cushion,” Thompson told the Royal Television Society conference in Cambridge, England, on Thursday, as reported by Variety. “It’s just a rude word for ‘creativity’.” In an in-conversation session with legendary talent agent Bryan Lourd, head of CAA, Thompson conceded that many executives were themselves creative but complained at the pressure to follow proven formulas. “You find your audience by being completely authentic,” she says. “These formulas don’t work… And then you sit there and you watch them and you wonder why at the end of it, you feel a bit ill.”