Emma Thompson Reveals Donald Trump Once Asked Her on a Date: 'I Thought It Was a Joke'

Emma Thompson, 66, was a hot commodity both on screen and in the eyes of Donald Trump!

The award-winning actress and critically acclaimed screenwriter revealed at the 2025 Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland that the president courted her for a date back in the day.

“A phone rang in my trailer, and it was Donald Trump. I thought it was a joke,” the Saving Mr. Banks star admitted. “‘Hi, it’s Donald Trump here.’ I said, ‘How can I help you?’ I thought he needed directions.”

She continued, “He said: ‘I would love for you to stay in one of my beautiful places, and maybe we could have dinner.’”

Thompson explained how her divorce from Kenneth Branagh in 1995 had just been finalized when Trump reached out to her, leading her to believe he or his team was “stalking” her.

“I realized that on that very day, my divorce has finally come through,” the screenwriter said. “I bet he has people looking all over for suitable people he could take out, for all these nice divorcees — I mean, he found the number of my trailer! That’s stalking! So yes, I could have gone on a date with Donald Trump. I could have changed the course of American history!”

Thompson is now married to actor and producer Greg Wise. The couple tied the knot in 2003 after meeting on the set of Sense and Sensibility in 1995.

While Trump was one of New York’s most eligible bachelors at the height of his business career, the now-president was married to Marla Maples at the time he reached out to Thompson. Trump and Maples married each other in December 1993 before they divorced in 1999.

Trump courting Thompson despite being married to Maples comes as no surprise, though, as the president’s relationship with his then-wife started off with infidelity.

Trump was married to Ivana Trump when he began having an affair with Maples. Ivana found out about their relationship in 1989 during a trip to Aspen, Colo., where the two women met during an unplanned encounter.

“This young blonde woman approached me out of the blue and said, ‘I’m Marla, and I love your husband. Do you?’” Ivana wrote in her Raising Trump memoir of how she found out about her husband’s affair. “I said, ‘Get lost. I love my husband.’ It was unladylike, but I was in shock.”