Emma Thompson Was Seriously Injured Making 'Matilda'

By Ashley Turner

Emma Thompson discovered some things about herself as an entertainer. As a seasoned performer, the Oscar-winner said an injury on the set of Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical caused her to reflect on her life. Prior to the movie's December 25 streaming release, Thompson told People about how she handled an ankle fracture while filming the musical, which stars the actress as Agatha Trunchbull, opposite Lashana Lynch as Miss Honey and Alisha Weir as Matilda Wormwood. "I fell over for no good reason and fractured my ankle, and I thought, 'That's kind of weird, I've never hurt myself like that. Huh, that's because I'm getting older,'" Thompson recalled. Thompson apologized for having to use a foot boot after the injury, saying it would mean she'd likely have to miss any stunt work the film had planned for her until it was removed. "I said, 'I'm so sorry, I've got to wear the boot,'" Thompson recounted. "They said, 'It's OK, you're doing a stunt today.' I said, 'What? I've just fractured my ankle.'" Thompson emphasized that despite her own hesitations about whether the stunt was feasible, the production confidently moved forward. "They said, 'It's OK, we're just turning you upside down. It's fine, you're on a crane,'" she explained. "I said, 'OK, all right then.'" 

As a result, the experience caused the Good Luck to You, Leo Grande star, to realize "I was sort of no longer as invulnerable as I thought. "Whilst I'm strong because I'm getting older, I can hurt myself, and that was interesting," she added. "My body's changing, and I've got to be more careful with it." Thompson also described to USA Today the process of disappearing into the role of Trunchbull in Netflix's Matilda the Musical (streaming Christmas Day), an adaptation of the 2013 Tony-winning Broadway show directed by Matthew Warchus. She recalled how it felt when she saw herself in full makeup and costume for the first time. "It was quite shocking," Thompson said. "But my main concern was that it would work for Matthew and the team. They had had 12 years of brilliant Trunchbulls (on Broadway and the West End) – the first one of whom I'd seen and admired so much I'd written him a fan letter: Bertie Carvel. He's very tall and muscular, and I thought: 'Gosh, that's a big ask. How am I going to live up to that?' " 

In Dahl's book and musical, Trunchbull has the backstory of being a former Olympic hammer thrower. She had broad shoulders and a large torso as an athlete, which were given to her in the movie by excessive padding. According to Warchus, Thompson also has "such a friendly face," so she was given a more severe nose and jawline with prosthetics. Trunchbull, at about 6 feet 6 inches tall, towers over Matilda in the movie. The illusion was created using inventive camera angles, body doubles, and practical techniques such as standing on boxes. In addition to wearing boots with extra-thick soles, Thompson was sometimes digitally enhanced to appear larger. Thompson had to spend three hours getting into hair, makeup, and costumes each day, which took five people a total of three hours. Since the film was shot in the summer, the wardrobe department installed pipes and tubes that pumped cold air into her costume. "It was a really massive challenge to create all the fittings," Thompson told USA Today. It was important for her to make Trunchbull's uniform look oily and messy "so you knew somehow that her hygiene was horrible." Additionally, she didn't wear brown contact lenses because "I (needed) as much of myself as possible so that it's unrecognizable but also very, very real." 

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