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On October 26th, 2025, the actress and author Emma Thompson participated in a dialogue with staff writer Helen Shaw at the 26th annual New Yorker Festival, a weekend encompassing discussions, screenings, performances, and similar events. The Festival, representing the magazine’s primary occasion, occurred in New York City and gathered prominent figures from the fields of literature, cinema, comedy, broadcasting, politics, and healthcare.
Emma Thompson, O.B.E., stands as one of the globe’s most esteemed imaginative individuals. She remains the sole performer to have secured Academy Awards for both acting (Best Actress, for “Howards End”) and screenwriting (“Sense and Sensibility”). Her cinematic work also encompasses “The Remains of the Day” and “In the Name of the Father,” for which she garnered Academy Award nominations; “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” for which she achieved nominations for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe; along with “Nanny McPhee,” among others. This year she will headline in a pair of suspense tales: “The Dead of Winter,” debuting in September, and “Down Cemetery Road,” launching in October. Thompson presides over the Helen Bamber Foundation, backs Greenpeace and Elect Her, and acts as a benefactor of the Food Foundation.
Helen Shaw, The New Yorker’s drama reviewer, became part of the publication in 2022. Formerly, she functioned as the theatre reviewer at New York and its cultural division, Vulture. She has furthermore composed on theatre and performance for 4Columns and Time Out New York, and has been a contributor to the New York Sun, American Theatre, the New York Times Book Review, The Village Voice, Art in America, and Artforum. She was the recipient of a 2025 Grace Dudley Prize for her offerings to The New Yorker, and jointly received the 2017-18 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism.
Sourse: newyorker.com
