Dame Emma Thompson feels 'strange' discussing Harry Potter

Dame Emma Thompson feels "strange" talking about her role in the Harry Potter movies.

The 67-year-old actress played Professor Sybill Trelawney in the Harry Potter film franchise, but Emma finds talking about the movies to be a bit odd, because she feels like a peripheral part of the series.

Emma - whose first appearance as Trelawney was in the third film, 2004's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - said to Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes on the Smartless podcast: "Honestly, in my quite long career, given the fact that I'm good 10 years older than all of you guys, I have done many many parts and I've spent about 30 days on Harry Potter in my whole life so it's kind of a strange thing to talk [about], because it's become such this huge phenomenon and that's a lot of the time that's what people are very sort of drawn to that."

Emma has played all sorts of characters in her long and successful film career. And the acclaimed actress always tries to approach each role with the same level of enthusiasm.

She said: "You just have to fling yourself into it, don't you? At first, and hope that your instincts are right."

Despite this, Emma particularly enjoys starring in movies that are geared towards children.

The actress explained: "I always consider children to be the sacred audience. They're the people we need to make the best of our work for because it's the first time that they see something. It needs to be so, so good."

Meanwhile, Kate Winslet previously heaped praise on Emma, her Sense and Sensibility co-star.

The 50-year-old actress starred alongside Emma in a 1995 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, and Kate has always paid close attention to the advice of her former co-star.

Speaking at the 92NY Center for Culture and Arts in New York City, Kate shared: "[Emma] has a groundedness and a clarity of perception about the industry as a whole.

"She was quite sort of protective of me."

Emma expressed her concern for Kate after she starred in Titanic, a role that changed her life.

Kate recalled: "I think she was actually just [a] bit worried like - you know, not, ‘is Kate gonna go off the rails?’ ’cause clearly that wasn’t in my personality - but just that it [can] be very overwhelming and what was I gonna do?

"She did say to me … just remember, it’s equally as important not to work as it’s to work. And I have never forgotten that.

"I knew that I didn’t want this to run out. I wanted to always be doing this job. And I thought, God, if I do it, then maybe people would get sick of me and argue, ‘Well, not her anymore, and let’s move on to somebody else.'"