English Digs

Emma Thompson won the Best Actress Oscar
in 1992 for Howards End.

Actress Emma Thompson, on reading for the audiobook of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw: [bold added]

I consider Henry James the most extraordinary writer (well, I almost prefer Edith Wharton, but don’t tell anyone I said that). I know his work very well, and I love it. The Turn of the Screw is extraordinary—the idea of these children knowing, in a ghastly way, stuff they shouldn’t know is so terribly good...

Interviewer: How do you use your voice to evoke a book’s atmosphere?

I think the writing does that for you. It gives you so many clues as to how it should be read.

Interviewer: Well, it does when you’re talking about a brilliant author.

Absolutely. I don’t know what you do if you’re reading Dan Brown aloud. I really don’t.

Bazinga! The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown must have felt that one across the Atlantic.