Emma Thompson was honored with a damehood at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday, and the moment was made extra special thanks to an interaction between the legendary British actor and the Duke of Cambridge.
Proving that even highly successful actors get giggly when faced with the ever-charming Prince William, the Nanny McPhee actor shared that she and the duke “sniggered” at each other when she asked for a kiss, as Hello Magazine is reporting.
“I love Prince William, I’ve known him since he was little, and we just sniggered at each other,” Thompson, 59, said of their interaction, according to the report. “I said, ‘I can’t kiss you, can I?’ And he said, ‘No don’t!’”
Dressed in a navy blue Stella McCartney suit and white sneakers, the veteran actor was the first in line to meet Prince William to receive her medal. As the first one up, Thompson was also expected to be the most formal one, but she just couldn’t contain herself, she said.
“If you’re first up you have to be more formal on such an occasion, but he’s looking wonderful and doing so well. He said, ‘This day isn’t about me, it’s about you,’” she said, adding that she holds a special place in her heart for Prince William and Prince Harry. “It’s really lovely because I’ve always loved the boys and I’ve always been a longterm correspondent with their dad, it’s a very lovely feeling.”
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Dame Emma was recognized in the Queen’s Birthday Honors list in June for her services to drama. The Oscar- and Bafta-winning star said it was “a very lovely feeling” to become a dame for services to drama, as BBC News pointed out. The actor, who is a self-proclaimed feminist and outspoken about political issues, said she wishes to use her damehood to bring attention to so-called “holiday hunger,” a term used to identify the problem that sees up to 3 million U.K. children go hungry during the school holidays, the BBC News report continued.
“This is a very rich country with hundreds of thousands of children who don’t get enough to eat,” she is quoted as saying by the Daily Mail . “I’m sorry, but that’s just rubbish. I’m going, why isn’t this top of the list? We have kids begging in schools for leftover food, that’s just awful.”
The event is also remarkable as actress Sarah Gordy, who has starred in Call the Midwife and Upstairs Downstairs, become the first woman with Down’s syndrome to be made a dame, according to the BBC News report .