Emma Thompson talks return to “Sweeney Todd”

While Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson is perhaps best known to Harry Potter fans for her role as eccentric Divination professor Sybill Trelawney, she recently returned to the stage in another role: Mrs. Lovett in the Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd. (Another Potter alumna, Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange), played the role in Tim Burton’s 2007 film adaptation.) In an article from BBC, Thompson revealed that her first theater role in over two decades “made [her] weep,” saying that it “was magical to be in front of an audience again.”

Fortunately for Thompson, she won’t have to see the magic end anytime soon. While the run of the production – in which actor Bryn Terfel plays the eponymous character – first began at New York’s Lincoln Center in March for only five performances, both Thompson and Terfel will be reprising their roles in a 13-performance revival of the show at the London Coliseum in the spring of 2015. On the opportunity to play Mrs. Lovett again, Thompson said that it was “like a dream come true” for her.

Thompson, however, added that she hopes she won’t find herself nauseated this time, saying,

If I can manage the fear without the nausea I’ll be fine.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street will run from from March 31 to April 12 at the English National Opera’s London Coliseum. For more information on the production, you can read the BBC article here.  Plus, check out some of the pictures from the New York production and a recent photocall for its run at the London Coliseum in the gallery below!  (If you’d like to see more pictures from its run at Lincoln Center, you can find those in our casting post here.)

Did you see Sweeney Todd during its New York run? Do you hope to see it in London? We’d love to hear from you!