‘It was completely f*cked up,’ says Emma Thompson regretting how much time she spent worrying about her body in her youth

Emma Thompson, who is currently in news for her latest film Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, has opened up on the body dysmorphia that plagued her in her teenage years and twenties.

The award-winning actress, 63, goes nude for her new movie Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, and while she is comfortable stripping off on screen now, she has revealed the difficult relationship she had with her looks in her youth.

Speaking to a publication, the actress admitted: 'It was completely f*cked up'

The actress explained that she 'lost confidence in my body in my early teens. I was surrounded by iconography that suggested to me, very forcibly, carving messages in my brain that have never been removed, that I could never have a nice enough body.'

'That I'd never be thin or pretty enough. I felt that my shape, and everything, was wrong. I was saddled with that [thought process] from very early on, as were most of my friends.'

Emma added that it is a huge regret of hers that she didn't tune out the external pressures, musing: 'It's a great, great shame. It's a waste of time, energy, money, passion, and purpose.'

'When I think of the waste, I wish that I had found a way to escape from that earlier. I now know that I never will. I'll die with it, and that's that.'

She added that if she had a chance to go back and change something in her youth that while 'there were a couple of outfits that were ill-judged, I think I'd stop dieting.'

'I would absolutely try to defuse this body dysmorphia thing, and really focus on it. It's regrettable and tragic how much time I spent worrying about that. I'd like to repurpose that energy elsewhere.'

Meanwhile, Emma is at the centre of a new debate surrounding her next movie, which sees her donning a 'fat suit' for the role of Roald Dahl's Miss Trunchbull in the big screen musical adaptation of Matilda.