Law earned her first professional acting credits in the ’50s.

The Winter Guest star Phyllida Law, mother of Emma and Sophie Thompson, dies at 94

Law earned her first professional acting credits in the ’50s.

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

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August 19, 2026 1:18 a.m. ET

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Sophie Thompson, Phyllida Law, and Emma Thompson after Law’s OBE investiture ceremony in London in 2014. Credit:

JOHN STILLWELL/POOL/AFP via Getty

- Actress Phyllida Law has died at 94.

- Law was not only a star in her own right, but the mother of actresses Emma and Sophie Thompson.

- She had memorably played Emma’s mother in the 1997 movie *The Winter Guest*.

Actress Phyllida Law, star of stage and screen and mother of actresses Sophie and Emma Thompson, has died. She was 94.

“It is with great sadness we have to announce that Phyllida Law died supremely peacefully at home, surrounded by all of her family, on Monday 27th July,” Law’s manager, Jacky Leggo, told the BBC. “We had worked together for over 50 years and she was a beautiful person inside and out.”

** has reached out to reps for Emma and Sophie Thompson.

Born in Glasgow, Law attended the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School planning to be a stage designer, but she wandered into acting, a field in which she was ultimately prolific.

She worked on the stage, including on London’s West End, and, in 1986, she originated the role of Jacqueline in the original London production of *La Cage Aux Folles*.

Law’s credits also included popular TV shows, such as *Midsommer Murders* and *Upstairs, Downstairs*, as well as notable films, including 1993’s *Much Ado About Nothing*, which costarred Emma; 1996’s *Emma *with Sophie; 1997’s *Anna Karenina*, with Sophie Marceau; and 2002’s *The Time Machine*, in which she costarred with Guy Pearce in an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ 1895 novella of the same name.

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Law portrayed her daughter Emma’s mother in Alan Rickman’s 1997 drama* The Winter Guest*.

At the time, Emma told the Golden Globes about working with her mother, who married her father, Eric Thompson, in 1957. They were married until he died in 1982.

Phyllida Law starred in British anthology series ‘Fly on the Wall’ in 1971.

ITV/Shutterstock

“Our relationship is unusual, and the reason is that there’s three of us in the family left now — me, my sister, and my mother — because my father died when my sister was 18 and I was 21. Pathetic! Now I think if my father was still alive, it would be very different,” Emma said. “I mean, we know mum so much better because we spent so much time together, we started going on holidays and traveling together, and we all live on the same street, within three doors of each other.”

She added, “We’re far closer-knit because of that event in our lives, also we’re three actresses who always had to earn our own living, we’ve never been supported by anyone. My mum always worked, I always worked when I was married, and my sister works. So that’s created quite a strong kind of triumvirate. It’s a little alarming, actually.”

Law was honored as Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2014.

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