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Dame Emma Thompson has shared a surprising, and somewhat surreal, story from her past, revealing that former US President Donald Trump once asked her out for dinner. Even more unexpectedly, the invitation came on the very same day her divorce from actor Kenneth Branagh was finalised.
Speaking during a career Q&A at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland on Saturday, the two-time Oscar winner recalled the moment in vivid detail. She explained she was in her trailer on the set of Primary Colours, the 1998 political drama inspired by Bill Clinton’s rise to the White House, when the phone rang.
“It was Donald Trump,” she said, according to The Telegraph. “He said: ‘Hello, this is Donald Trump.’ I thought it was a joke and asked: ‘How can I help you?’ Maybe he needed directions from someone.”
But the conversation quickly took an unexpected turn. “Then he said: ‘I’d love you to come and stay at one of my beautiful places. Maybe we could have dinner.’”
Thompson, now 66, admitted she was taken aback but responded politely: “Well, that’s very sweet. Thank you so much. I’ll get back to you.” She never did.
The Love Actually and Sense and Sensibility star said she had no idea how Trump had even known she was divorced, or why he thought to call her. She suggested that perhaps his team had been on the lookout for a “suitable” public companion.
Emma Thompson, John Travolta, and Billy Bob Thornton in Primary Colors - Credit: Allstar/Cinetext/BBC
“I bet he’s got people looking for suitable people he could take out on his arm. You know, a nice divorcee, that’s what he was looking for,” she joked.
Thompson also mused that, had she said yes, she might have “changed the course of American history”, a comment that drew laughter from the Locarno audience.
The revelation has sparked fresh online chatter about the actor’s quick wit and Trump’s history of unexpected celebrity encounters.
At the time of the call, Thompson was riding high in her career, having already won an Academy Award for Howards End (1992) and another for her Sense and Sensibility screenplay (1995). Primary Colours, in which she played a character loosely based on Hillary Clinton, went on to receive critical acclaim for its sharp political commentary.
Trump, meanwhile, was still best known as a New York property developer and businessman, though his public profile was already shaped by a mix of celebrity appearances, high-profile real estate projects, and tabloid coverage of his personal life.
While the dinner date never happened, Thompson’s story adds yet another colourful chapter to both her career and Trump’s long history of headline-grabbing moments. And, as she told the Locarno crowd with a grin, sometimes the most remarkable tales are the ones that never make it past “I’ll get back to you.”
