The Simpsons boss speaks out on "bucket list" guest star Emma Thompson as new season premieres

The Simpsons kicked off its 38th season in the United States last night, with the episode 'The Children's Book Job' featuring British national treasure Emma Thompson making a guest appearance.

Her character Constance Clavinger is a famous writer who comes to Springfield to help save the school from closing... if Homer can keep her sober long enough.

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Speaking to Variety, The Simpsons showrunner Matt Selman opened up about getting the Love Actually and Cruella star for the premiere.

"If you're going to write a giant guest part, you want an icon, a bucket list person like Emma Thompson," he stated.

"And she threw herself into it with full gusto. It's sort of an interesting season premiere in that you're meeting a new character and it's kind of Homer's side adventure."

Speaking about the episode's theme in general, Selman said: "It makes a lot of great points about parenting and trying not to be a checked-out parent.

"And this line I like in it, Homer says, 'children's books are a better parent than I'll ever be.' It's a good little bit of truthfulness there from Homer."

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This week's episode 'Diary of a Chimpy Kid' will feature some "some genital mutilation comedy", which Selman is "very pleased with", while an upcoming episode titled 'Testing 1-2-3' will tackle the topic of neurodiversity in a "funny" and "empathetic" way.

Meanwhile, work on the second Simpsons movie is coming on nicely, with Selman calling it "S-tier".

Earlier this year, the showrunner revealed the big-name star sitting at the top of the most-wanted guest list and put out a public plea to get them on.

"Will Ferrell," Selman stated, adding: "Come on, Will. We keep writing great stuff for you."

The Simpsons airs new episodes on Sunday nights on Fox and streams on Hulu the next day in the US. New episodes release later on in the UK via Disney+.

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Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016. In his time, he's covered a host of live events and interviewed celebrities big and small. A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe also enjoys video games and in particular PlayStation. Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I'm a Fish.