EMMA THOMPSON - THOMPSON CREDITS WRITING SUCCESS TO LATE DAD'S LUCKY PEN

EMMA THOMPSON owes her writing successes to a "magic pen" her late father bought her when she was a child. The actress, who won an Oscar for her SENSE AND SENSIBILITY adapted screenplay and acclaim for writing new family film NANNY MCPHEE, still uses the $29 (GBP17) pen her dad, ERIC, treated her to when she was a teenager. She says, "My dad died very young, at 52, when I was 21 - which one still hasn't really recovered from - and he bought me one of those ink pens. "He tried to persuade me to buy a cheaper one because he was quite mean with his money and I said, 'No, that's the one I want,' and I did all my exams with it, I've written all my scripts with it - it's like my magic pen." Thompson admits she always pens her scripts in longhand - because she hates the glare from a computer screen. She adds, "I just write at an old wooden table and I write longhand because I don't like writing on computers, I don't like the effect of that screen and the light of that screen on your body. "I know it's a bit new age of me; I'm not remotely new age, I have to say, and I support vast consumption of vodka in the evening and lots of very bad habits I have... but I write everything with a pen."