How Emma Thompson steps up to be the hero she never had in ‘Good Luck to You, Leo Grande’

“I have many vile qualities, but I don’t really have much vanity,” Emma Thompson says of her willingness to do full frontal nudity in “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande.” Emma Thompson is not afraid to be … anyone. And that fearlessness extends to her two most recent roles — as a horrific headmistress in “Matilda the Musical” and as a retired teacher coming out of her shell in “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande.” With Thompson, 63, it was ever thus: Whether wearing period costumes in “Sense and Sensibility” or “Howards End”, shaving her head as a cancer patient in “Wit,” or helping Arnold Schwarzenegger get pregnant, Thompson elevates every role she inhabits with laser-focused wit and charm that simultaneously brooks no nonsense. “Leo Grande’s” Nancy is one of those parts women have said for years don’t exist — a lead role as a sexual being for women over a certain age. “Leo Grande” also touches on taboo areas that aren’t even about sex — a parent’s disappointment in her children, for instance.