[homoe]

Emma Thompson was characteristically frank about Hollywood’s double standard during a recent interview with the CultureBlast podcast. The “Nanny McPhee” star, who is also a prolific screenwriter, was talking about her upcoming film “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” which she said is a refreshing change of pace from the the typical Hollywood film about women who have romances with men decades older than themselves.

Directed by Sophie Hyde, “Leo Grande” is the story of a widow whose late husband had been an unsatisfying lover, so she decides to seek out a sex therapist in his early 20s.

Thompson’s character in the film says, “The only people willing to sleep with me are my age and I want to sleep with someone younger than me.” But it’s very rare for women to express that desire for a younger man onscreen, she says. “If I have someone playing opposite me in a romantic way, they have to exhume someone, because I’m 61 now,” she jokes.

“You get past 50 and you’re invisible.”

Meanwhile, she says that it’s completely acceptable for George Clooney to have an onscreen romance with someone who is 30 or 40 years younger than him. “It’s completely unbalanced,” she says.

But she holds out hope that the industry is changing. “If people aren’t averse to seeing someone who is 61 largely naked, with a very much younger person, it’s going to be very interesting. We’ve got to keep being brave.”