Audrey Hepburn could not act: Emma Thompson

Los Angeles: Audrey Hepburn is considered a screen and style icon but Oscar winner Emma Thompson says the `The Breakfast at Tiffany`s` star could not act.Thompson, who is writing a new movie version of Hepburn starrer 1964 classic `My Fair Lady, describes the Hollywood icon as `mumsy` and `twee` in an interview to Variety and the Hollywood reporter.

"She can`t sing and she can`t really act, I`m afraid. I`m sure she was a delightful woman - and perhaps if I had known her I would have enjoyed her acting more, but I don`t and I didn`t, so that`s all there is to it really," the `Sense And Sensibility` star said. The 51-year-old actress is also not a great fan of the Hepburn and Rex Harrison starrer movie, which was adapted from George Bernard Shaw`s play `Pygmalion`. "I`m not hugely fond of the film. I find Audrey Hepburn fantastically twee. Twee is whimsy without wit. It is mimsy-mumsy sweetness without any kind of bite. And that`s not for me. Hepburn won an Oscar for her role in the 1953 `Roman Holiday` and her films `Breakfast At Tiffany`s` and her role of Eliza Doolittle `My Fair Lady` is considered an all time classic. But her voice was dubbed over and musical`s most classic songs such as `I Could Have Danced All Night` and `The Rain in Spain` are by American singer Marni Nixon. Thompson is thrilled to be writing the new version of the musical but her screenplay will be more of `Pygmalion`. "I find it chocolate-boxy, clunky and deeply theatrical. I don`t think that it`s a film. It`s the theatre piece put onto film. It was Cecil Beaton`s designs and Rex Harrison that gave it its extraordinary quality. Thompson also doesn`t like the way Eliza Doolittle was portrayed in the film, a part she hopes British actress Carey Mulligan will play. "I don`t do Audrey Hepburn. I think that she`s a guy thing. I`m sure she was this charming lady, but I didn`t think she was a very good actress. It`s high time that the extraordinary role of Eliza was reinterpreted because it`s a very fantastic part for a woman," said Thompson. `My Fair Lady` is about a flower seller who is taken in by posh phonetics professor, Henry Higgins. Higgins bets he can train her to speak in an upper-class accent in a bid to pass her off as a lady in society circles. PTI