Actress had to quit sex for movie role

Los Angeles - Emma Thompson "didn't have sex" for half a year while filming Saving Mr. Banks. 

The actress' image as Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers opposite Tom Hanks in the movie - which tells the true story of Walt Disney's battle to bring the novel to the big screen - was very prim and proper, which she admitted was a "nightmare".

She told Parade magazine: "It was a nightmare! People would bleat in the streets as I went by. I didn't have sex for six months!"

Although the movie was a retelling of Walt's campaign to adapt the book into a musical, many of Emma's roles have focused on love.

She insisted this is in part because of the parts available to women in Hollywood, and also down to ''love'' as an idea being all that matters.

Emma added: "Partly because it's one of the major areas in which women are allowed to take part. It's not as if I've got the same kind of choices as Brad Pitt in filmmaking.

"But also because love is the only thing that matters. Not just romantic love...there's affection, Eros, family love...it's exactly what we're designed to do."