Last Christmas: Emma Thompson reveals George Michael gave his blessing for film starring Emilia Clarke

Festive rom-com stars Game of Thrones actor as a down-on-her-luck woman who meets a man over the festive holidays

Emma Thompson has revealed that George Michael gave her his blessing to write the forthcoming film Last Christmas.

The festive romantic comedy stars Emilia Clarke as Kate, a down-on-her-luck woman who meets Tom (Henry Golding) after accepting a job as a department store elf during the Christmas holidays. The soundtrack and elements of the film are focused on the music of Michael and Wham!

Thompson, who worked on the screenplay and also stars as the character Adelia, appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to discuss the release.

“This wonderful producer, David Livingstone, said: ‘Do you want to write a screenplay, a rom-com sort of thing, because we need a new Christmas movie based on [the song] “Last Christmas”,’ and I said: ‘Not really, because it’s not my favourite Christmas song,’” Thompson said.

However, after she and her husband Greg Wise began thinking about a potential plot for the film, she says they found “an interesting, sideways way of telling a different kind of story about the human heart”.

Thompson then sent her plot ideas to Michael, and later met up with the star to discuss getting the movie into production.

“He was just the loveliest guy you could imagine,” she recalled. “[He loved] all of these themes in the movie, he was passionate about homelessness, and he had this great social conscience.

“I got really enthused and we started to write, and then – of course – he had that tragic early death in 2016, on Christmas Day. So we lost him, and I miss him so much.”

Thompson described the film as “like being hugged” and said the soundtrack includes a new Michael song, ‘Heal the Pain’, which was written for the film.