Emma Thompson has been candid about Kenneth Branagh’s affair with Helena Bonham Carter during their marriage — a look back at their romance
Love actually … not? Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh went from working together to falling in love in real life — while also weathering his affair with Helena Bonham Carter — before the pair ultimately split.
The British actors met in 1987 while filming the series Fortunes of War and started to date shortly after. Two years later, Thompson and Branagh tied the knot and continued to work on various projects together.
“He was incandescent with ambition and performance energy,” the Nanny McPhee actress recalled of her former flame in an interview with The New Yorker in November 2022. “Like two mating lobsters, we clashed claws.”
In September 1995, however, they announced their separation — citing their conflicting work schedules as the reason for their split. It later came out that the Henry V actor had an affair with Bonham Carter while he was married to the Oscar winner, which caused their romance to take a turn for the worse.
“I was utterly, utterly blind to the fact that he had relationships with other women on set,” Thompson told The New Yorker in a profile published in November 2022.
