Emma Thompson

The summer movie season has not traditionally speaking, been known for its nuanced attention to female sexuality.

Emma Thompson's naked scene in her new film about an older woman hiring a sex worker was "probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do," she told the Sundance film festival on Jan. 22.

Emma Thompson has delivered the most heartbreaking of tributes to her frequent on-screen collaborator and friend, Alan Rickman, who passed away after a cancer battle on Thursday.

“Alan was my friend and so this is hard to write because I have just kissed him goodbye,” Thompson said who played Karen, wife to Rickman’s Harry in 2003’s Love Actually.

British actor Alan Rickman has died from cancer at the age of 69, his family has said.

The star of stage and screen was among the most admired British actors of his generation, famous for roles in Harry Potter, Love Actually and Die Hard.

He won a BAFTA, Golden Globe, Emmy and Screen Actors Guild award during his career which began in the late 1970s.