Emma Thompson blasts Audrey Hepburn

[kokoro]

Emma Thompson's been trying to get together a new adaption of My Fair Lady, or rather Pygmalion with the same music, but now she's taken things too far! Speaking badly about Audrey is a sure fire way to raise my ire, and I need people to rage with me!

Some sources:

Audrey Hepburn is considered a screen and style icon but Oscar winner Emma Thompson says the `The Breakfast at Tiffany's' star could not act.

Thompson, who is writing a new movie version of Hepburn starrer 1964 classic 'My Fair Lady,' describes the Hollywood icon as 'mumsy' and 'twee' in an interview to Variety and the Hollywood reporter.

"She can't sing and she can't really act, I'm afraid. I'm sure she was a delightful woman - and perhaps if I had known her I would have enjoyed her acting more, but I don't and I didn't, so that's all there is to it really," the 'Sense And Sensibility' star said.

The 51-year-old actress is also not a great fan of the Hepburn and Rex Harrison starrer movie, which was adapted from George Bernard Shaw`s play 'Pygmalion.'

"I'm not hugely fond of the film. I find Audrey Hepburn fantastically twee. Twee is whimsy without wit. It is mimsy-mumsy sweetness without any kind of bite. And that's not for me.

Hepburn won an Oscar for her role in the 1953 'Roman Holiday' and her films 'Breakfast At Tiffany's' and her role of Eliza Doolittle 'My Fair Lady' is considered an all time classic.

But her voice was dubbed over and musical's most classic songs such as 'I Could Have Danced All Night' and 'The Rain in Spain' are by American singer Marni Nixon.

Thompson is thrilled to be writing the new version of the musical but her screenplay will be more of 'Pygmalion.'

"I find it chocolate-boxy, clunky and deeply theatrical. I don't think that it's a film. It's the theatre piece put onto film. It was Cecil Beaton's designs and Rex Harrison that gave it its extraordinary quality."

Thompson also doesn't like the way Eliza Doolittle was portrayed in the film, a part she hopes British actress Carey Mulligan will play.

"I don't do Audrey Hepburn. I think that she's a guy thing. I'm sure she was this charming lady, but I didn't think she was a very good actress. It's high time that the extraordinary role of Eliza was reinterpreted because it's a very fantastic part for a woman," said Thompson.

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Seriously, Emma? I love you, but I can't believe you would be so classless as to make public comments like this about Audrey or anyone for that matter. It's one thing to dislike a movie (in fact, I think My Fair Lady is far from Audrey's best movie myself), but before you go trashing a person you've neither met nor worked with, you should see all of their movies, which you clearly haven't. Otherwise you would know that Audrey is both a good actor (The Nun's Story, Two for the Road, and Wait Until Dark being the best examples in my opinion) and a good singer (she's no Julie Andrews, of course, but her singing in Funny Face and Breakfast at Tiffany's was enjoyable). It's called an informed opinion. I know you've made some bad movies, and I bet you would hate for us to judge you based on those alone. I expected better from you. This is not the way to stir up interest in your adaption.

And Audrey is a "guy thing?" Honey, you're not living in the real world.