In the early minutes of the new movie Nanny McPhee Returns, one line resounds in the ears of every working mother. Nanny suggests Mrs. Green–the “Mum” –can have some time for herself.

“Time for myself?” Mrs. Green screams. “Time for myself!”
 
From that moment, we know this film is fantasy–a fantasy written by a working mom–Oscar-winner Emma Thompson, directed by working mom Susanna White and starring two working moms: Thompson as Nanny and Maggie Gyllenhaal as the harried mother, Mrs. Green.
 
Thompson reprises her role as the ugly, stern, magical nanny–the antithesis of the sugary Mary Poppins. Time has moved forward to World War II and Nanny is sent by the powers around her to help Mrs. Green (Gyllenhaal) take control of her farm, her squabbling children and their city cousins while dad is away in the army.
 
In an interview with Thompson, she said the Nanny stories, which she adapted from the British novel series, Nurse Matilda, resonated with her–both the children who see the world in ways adults do not and in the relationships.
 
Thompson says she loves the quirky character but also the takeaways of the five rules. (Rule One: Stop Fighting.) When asked if she began writing children’s movies when she became a mother, she balks. She says they are more than children’s movies. There is something in them for everyone and, for the record, she began writing the first screenplay years before her daughter was born.

But Thompson  is emphatic that life and work change when you have children. Her 10-year-old daughter, Gaia, was born when Thompson was 40. She also has an adopted 23-year-old son from Rwanda, Tindyebwa Agaba. She says about her children, “I will always feel this terrible irreversible and overwhelming love for these people.”
 
Thompson has been in more than 30 movies and received Academy Awards for best actress in Howard’s End (1992) and for screenwriting for Sense and Sensibility (1995).

Her Oscars prove she is as much a writer as an actor.  She loves writing partly because it gives her time to be at home with her family. “Writing is a gift because I can write and be entirely available.  I can get my daughter to school, be there, weekends be there, pick her up from school, cook dinner, chat, put to bed. I can be a writer and a mother.  And I love it.”

She has just completed writing a new screenplay–a remake of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, imagined anew in popular culture as My Fair Lady. It will be interesting to see what such a self-professed feminist with a deep interest in human rights will bring to the life of Liza Doolittle. Thompson will play a supporting role as the housekeeper.

Acting is a more difficult job for a mother, she adds. The days are long and not your own; and there are the demands of the character to become someone else. As a mom, she says, you can never stop being in your real-mom role and completely inhabit another character like she could before children.
 
She admits she would be “terribly bored” if she couldn’t work.

Beyond film, theater, TV and motherhood, she has used her celebrity to fight for causes important to her–human trafficking and global poverty on a grand scale. She is active with The Helen Bamber Foundation, a UK-based human rights organization that focuses on individual survivors of cruelty, and ActionAid, an anti-poverty organization.

She even snuck in some good work while traveling for the for the Nanny McPhee press tour.  It allowed her to meet with others to raise funds for her causes in the US before she heads home to England as the school term begins. Closer to home, she is president of a national organization to honor teachers.

Her other charitable work will take her and her son to Burundi in October, the 6th of 10 trips for ActionAid that will become a book. She will also go to The Hague (the Netherlands) in October to report officially on trafficking and slavery.

Thompson is one of those moms who has been forced to learn to say no to the demands around her–causes and issues close to her heart. Time is always her challenge.

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And while a room of reporters began by politely asking about the film and its messages, we finally asked about her favorite part of Nanny McPhee Returns.

A naughty smile comes over her face and she laughs so hard it’s difficult for her to get the words out. “Pigs doing synchronized swimming! I think, it’s just so funny! When those little trotters come up!” she says as she raises her hands above her head mimicking the wagging little feet in the film. “Hilarious!”

“Since you wrote it,” I asked, “did they come out as you pictured them?”

“Far better! I just wrote in the script: The piglets perform a short synchronized swimming routine. I thought, ahah! Try that one! Didn’t know what they would come up with. And it was wonderful!”  

It’ clear Thompson gets it. As working moms, we all need a giggle once in a while. We need "time for myself" even if it means sitting in a dark theater watching pigs swim and fly!

Read a review of Nanny McFee Returns here