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Helena Bonham Carter
26 May 1966 - Golders Green, London, England
With her classical good looks and regal demeanor, it's
not hard to image that Helena Bonham Carter is of noble pedigree. Her
great-grandfather, Herbert Henry Asquith, was Britain's prime minister from 1908
to 1916, and it was this lineage which made it possible for her to attend
private schools.
Sister to two older brothers, Thomas and Edward,
Helena found her calling at the tender age of five when visiting
a friend, who as it turned out, was an actress. By thirteen, Bonham Carter was
perform- ing in school plays and had won a national poetry contest. It was
around that time that illness struck the family without warning when her father,
Raymond, suffered a stroke in the aftermath of a brain tumor operation. Although
Helena diligently helped her mother in the care of her father, she also
continued to persue her acting career. Three years after the tragedy, Helena
landed her first role in a 1982 British TV movie.
After graduating from London's Westminster
School, she decided to passed up on attenting Cambridge University, opting
instead to play the teenage Queen in "Lady Jane", directed by Trevor
Nunn. But American audiences came to know her in the critically acclaimed
Merchant/Ivory production of "A Room With A View".
FILM/TV CREDITS
- Planet of the Apes (2001)
- Fight Club (1999)
- Women Talking Dirty (1999)
- Merlin (1998) [TV]
Photos: Click
here!
- The Revengers' Comedies (1998)
- The Theory of Flight (1998)
- Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1997)
- The Petticoat Expeditions (1997)
- The Wings of the Dove (1997)
- The Great War (1996) [TV]
- Portraits chinois (1996)
- Twelfth Night (1996)
- Margaret's Museum (1995)
- Mighty Aphrodite (1995)
- Frankenstein (1994)
- A Dark Adapted Eye (1994) [TV]
- Fatal Deception... (93) [TV]
- Dancing Queen (1993) [TV]
- Howards End (1992)
- Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991)
- Hamlet (1990)
- Francesco (1989)
- Getting It Right (1989)
- La Maschera (1988)
- A Hazard of Hearts (1987) [TV]
- Maurice (1987)
- The Vision (1987)
- Lady Jane (1986)
- A Room with a View (1986)
 
Bonham Carter Unmasked
by Paul Fischer
Helena Bonham Carter, Planet Of
The Apes' female star, granted an interview to Paul in New York.
Helena Bonham Carter spent
years covering her ankles in all of that period garb. Now, as the female chimp
lead in Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes, she is able to hide much more, as she
jokingly confides in Paul Fischer's in-depth look at one of the most anticipated
films of the Summer.
Helena Bonham Carter had good
reason to look exhausted. "So would YOU be if you had done 66 television
interviews the day before," the 35 year old British actress exclaims. Yet
simply attired in a short black dress, dangling a cigarette in one hand and a
cup of tea in the other, Bonham Carter was not all that reticent about playing a
chimp in Tim Burton's revisionist interpretation of Planet of the Apes.
"It's either one of those things where you think about it a LOT and make a
decision over, or say: Fuck it, I'm going to do it." Suffice it to say, the
latter argument won the day. "It ended up being an easy decision because I
thought: I can't NOT do it given that Tim phoned me up and said: Don't get me
wrong but you were the first person I thought of." Bonham Carter adds that
she couldn't resist playing a chimpanzee because "It's the kind of part
I'll never be asked to do again... Set in the year 2020, the new Apes has pilot
Mark Wahlberg stranded on a gloomy planet run by militarist apes, some of whom
are determined to rid the planet of its sub-human population. He is eventually
helped by Bonham Carter's sympathetic chimp who strongly believes in the
equivalent of racial equality.
Making Apes was no easy task
for the actress who had to endure 6 hours of make up, beginning at 2 a.m. Bonham
Carter says that what kept her awake during that process was that "the
whole experience of doing this film was so surreal, because I knew that it was
going to be this perpetual climate of absurdity throughout, then it became even
more absurd because it suddenly felt normal to be woken up at 2 and have people
reset one's upper lip and say: Oh God my chin's falling off or can I have my
teeth? The whole thing became rather strange." The process, she explains,
"was just basically a patchwork of rubber and glue, just very painstakingly
applied with bits of rubber and lots of facial hair; my entire head was covered
in rubber." Through this entire make up, Bonham Carter also had to create a
performance, and encapsulate a believable character. Achieving this, she
explains, "was a mixture of traits, beginning with your eyes, which is
really the most important thing. Then there's the physical stuff. A chimp
obviously smells a lot and there's a lot of that, tempered with the less-is-more
notion in film, trying to do big things but be subtle at the same time. It was
quite the juggling act."
Comparing this film to the
original 1968 classic, she aggress with the film's producer, Richard Zanuck,
that this Apes is more simplistic and entertaining than the original. "It's
less seriously intended than the original, I think, and probably less political.
On the other hand, if I'm in the middle of something I don't think about those
issues." Though the actress does admit being a fan of the Heston original.
"I thought it was a very beautiful and also quite complex film, but ours
merely borrowed the title and premise; it's a completely different story. If
anyone could get away with doing that it's Tim, whose imagination is perfect for
this material."
Ironically, Bonham Carter's
career began in the past - literally. Having made her screen debut in Lady Jane,
the actress became personified with quaint period dramas of the likes of Room
with a View, Howard's End and Wings of the Dove. Now here she is in a futuristic
drama where it's not her ankles that are covered up. "With this one, I just
moved up," she adds laughingly. "I'm obviously masochistic because I
have different types of constrictions." Yet, she adds, those types of
constrictions have benefited her acting. "I'm the kind of actor who has
ventured into escaping from me, in a weird way, which is why it was so good to
play a chimp, because every time I THINK I've lost myself in a character I look
at it and think: Oh, it's ME again, but I wasn't aware of that at all in this
case."
18 years since her debut in
Lady Jane, Bonham Carter has grown in stature as one of England's brightest
stars. With success comes celebrity, and despite her more recent high profile
relationship with Kenneth Branagh, Bonham Carter remains fiercely protective
over her private life. "I'm terribly shy about that stuff. I mean it's
different when you're an actor and playing a part, but when it's just you, you
feel immensely vulnerable have strangers prodding and prying, as it were."
Bonham Carter is happier
talking about her work, such as in the upcoming Australian film 'Till Human
Voices Wake Us, which she shot in Melbourne just prior to Apes. "I was
going from one extreme to the other." A very low budget, gentle and lyrical
film, Bonham Carter stars opposite Guy Pearce in this story about an amnesiac
woman mysteriously linked to a seemingly cold and isolated psychiatrist. "I
had a great time working in Australia and Guy is such an amazing actor to work
with." The actress will also soon be seen in the new Steve Martin film
Novocaine, also featuring Steve Martin. As for Miss Bonham Carter's plans to do
an Apes sequel, all she will say is, "Let's see what happens with this
one." This is one actress who, at present, is content to monkey around
until the right part comes her way.
Planet Of The Apes opens
nationwide this Friday, July 27, 2001.
boxing helena
by richard johnson
los angeles magazine
november, 1999
helena bonham carter seemed trapped forever in
a 19th-century drawing room. but with fight club, the queen of period breaks out
of the box—and those corsets—for good
helena bonham carter, seated in the restaurant
of the covent garden hotel in london, easily holds a stranger's gaze across a
starched linen tablecloth. contrary to the impression left by a string of
doe-eyed ingenues she's played on screen, bonham carter (the hyphen, she says,
is optional) is not given to blushing or pushing garden peas around her plate.
"people have lots of misconceptions about me," she says in her drawing
room accent. "my first live interview was to promote a room with a view on
the today show. the interviewer said, 'tell me what it's like to be royal!'
'royal?' i said. 'i'm not royal. my family is posh, but only because my
great-grandfather [h.h. asquith] was prime minister.' i could see my publicist
shaking her head. after i finished, she ran over and said, 'don't do that again!
they love the royal thing in america.'"
truth be told, bonham carter isn't royal,
she's not even terribly english. "my mum, who is half french and half
spanish, gets outraged when i'm called 'quintessentially english.'" she
say's 'what about our side of the family?' i owe my looks to my mum—which was
90 percent of getting my first job. and some people would argue, 90 percent of
my entire career. journalists are always calling my features 'edwardian' or
'victorian,' whatever that means. i am small, and people were smaller in those
times. i'm pale and sickly-looking. i look fragile, although i'm not—like a
doll. but sometimes i just wish i had less of a particular look, one that was
more versatile." her roles of late defy any typecasting that look might
suggest. in the wings of the dove, which won bonham carter a 1998 oscar
nomination, she played a romantic schemer at the center of a love triangle with
linus roache and alison elliott. in last year's the theory of flight, costarring
her ex-boyfriend kenneth branagh, she is jane, afflicted by motor-neuron disease
and determined to have sex before she dies. and in her latest hollywood foray,
the controversial fight club, costarring brad pitt and ed norton, bonham
carter's marla is a desperate, dark-eyed, chain-smoking support-group junkie
whose hair seems styled by a hungry rat. with any luck, this may be her turning
point. "no matter how many modern parts i do, people still refer to me as
mrs. costume drama," she says. "i suppose it depends if the films are
successful. fight club is a studio pic, and i've done very few of those. i've
got a feeling it's going to change things for me."
bonham carter has proven fairly adept at
making changes, herself. for starters, she says, she didn't come into this world
as an actress. "lots of actors were born to do it," she figures.
"kate winslet, for instance. i think she probably came running out of the
womb saying, 'where's my mark?' me, i invented myself as an actor. i'm not
particularly emotional, except when it comes to laughter. i'm squeamish about
emotion. i've got a very low sentimentality threshold, and i don't like people
showing off. i haven't got that 'exhibitionism of emotion,' which is what you're
required to have as an actor." but an actress friend of the family made an
early and indelible impression on young helena. "she was immensely
glamorous," bonham carter recalls. "both my brothers had crushes on
her so did my dad. i thought, 'she's got the right idea."'
helena was five years old when she made her
career decision. by 13, inspired by a friend at westminster school who had an
agent ("and was a terrible source of envy"), bonham carter sought her
own representation and quickly landed a role as juliet—in a stereo
advertisement. romeo came out of the other speaker. when subsequent parts in
small features drew some critical acclaim, she indefinitely postponed her
acceptance to cambridge university to concentrate on acting. her next film was
1986's hugely successful a room with a view, the first of four she would make
based on the novels of e.m. forster. at the time, like room's lucy honeychurch,
the lovelorn romantic in james ivory's beautiful adaptation, bonham carter was
an innocent abroad.
"that year i was asked to present
something at the oscars with matthew broderick," she remembers. "i
didn't know what to wear, so i just got a dress from my cupboard, a tulle thing
from miss selfridge [an inexpensive clothing chain in london]. i shoved a skirt
of my mother's underneath it and tied my own bow on the front. it had flair, i
suppose, but looked a nightmare. i even did my own hair and makeup. i remember
journalists asking me who i was wearing. they wanted to know the name of the
designer. i just said, 'the skirt's from my mum."'
not long after, bonham carter countered her
merchant ivory success with a stint as theresa, a drug-addicted doctor in two
episodes of miami vice. "ten days in miami," she says. "why not?
but i was only 19 at the time, and i didn't think i could took like i was old
enough to be a qualified doctor. i met don [johnson] and michael [philip michael
thomas]. michael was pleased—major bonding because we had the same birthday.
but the director looked at me and said, 'you don't took old enough to be a
qualified doctor.' it was a love story, and don was worried about looking like a
pedophile. so they started to put latex on me in makeup. you don't start
wrinkling at the age of 25, so they gave up and let me get on with it."
now 33, bonham carter still has the
translucent skin of a woman half her age. when she was making 1995's margaret's
museum, a small canadian release about a coal miner's daughter in nova scotia,
the cosmetics giant yardley approached her to rejuvenate their brand image.
"i thought, 'for christ's sake, hel, don't be so precious. it's just going
to be a few photos—mostly for the middle east market. it's great security.'
but it didn't end up just for the middle east market. it was worldwide. and
you're advertising makeup, not what you look good in, so unfortunately, they put
me in bright red 4pstick." a scary combination with consumptive skin. the
contract wasn't renewed, but last january, tag heuer filled the lucrative gap,
offering bonham carter the gig as the face behind their high-end watches.
"the advert has a picture of me in period costume," she says.
"and a picture of me as a modem woman. it says, 'i am what i am. i'm not
how others perceive me.' so i'm exploiting the misconceptions. for once, i'm
making a lot of money from them."
despite her early professional and financial
success, bonham carter lived at home in a suburb of london, with her mother, a
psychotherapist, and her father, a banker, until she was 30 years old. when she
did finally move, around the time she began seeing her frankenstein director,
kenneth branagh, she only went a short bus ride away, and she goes home for
dinner whenever she can. regardless, she still feels guilty about abandoning her
father, who was left in a wheelchair after suffering a brain tumor and a stroke.
"it took me so many years to move out," bonham carter admits.
"i'm definitely a bit of a peter pan, reluctant to grow up. it all seemed
really nice at home—why change it? part of me would prefer not to have any
responsibility whatsoever." but she has taken some on in the domestic
department, and builders have finished renovating her new apartment in belsize
park, one of london's prettier villages.
when it comes to a fashion sense, as her oscar
outfit illustrates' bonham carter often finds herself at a crossroads. the black
jeans she is wearing today are from paris, and the black cardigan looks like it
may have had an interlude on a thrift-store rack. "i'll try things that
look nice, but they're just never comfortable," she says. "i've got
millions of shoes, but i always end up wearing these great clumpy things."
she points at her black buffalo sneakers. "they're comfy, and they add a
few inches. unfortunately, they don't go with everything. but you get the length
of leg without the pain. i tend to buy things i would never wear—only because
i would like to be the sort of person who would wear them."
while she allows that she is happy to live
alone, since meeting branagh, bonham carter has maintained a discreet silence
about her private life. the couple denied their involvement for a long time—at
the outset, he was still married to emma thompson, who is now expecting a child
with her new beau, actor greg wise (sense and sensibility). even after being
photographed kissing in a park, bonham carter and branagh remained tight-lipped
about their relationship. "the press know we haven't really ever spoken
about it," she says. "so all they get from me is 'not going to go any
further.' as soon as you begin to have a dialogue, it's an invitation to ask,
and before you know it, it's a license to hang around outside the house. as it
is, we've had remarkably little hassle."
bonham carter resolutely refuses to be
imprisoned by fame. her friends tell her that she has stopped noticing when
people stare at her, a coping technique facilitated by the fact that she's
shortsighted. "famous people come up to me, but i don't know who they are
because my sight is so bad," she laughs. "it's always at the pool of
the four seasons in beverly hills when i don't have my lenses in and my glasses
are in my room.' the last time, it was 'hi, helena.' i could tell he was
caucasian. i said, 'hi.' he said, 'how are you doing?' i said, 'i'm fine. but i
can't see who you are.' it was matthew brodenck. the next day, the same thing
happened with sigourney weaver. with the number of people i ignore, i'm lucky i
work at all in this town."
branagh doesn't think "helly," as he
calls her, will ever be hard up for gainful employment." it sounds like a
silly thing to say of a young person, but i sense a growing admiration for her
longevity," he says. "i imagine it's quite hard for people like
helena, who are truly learning about what they do in the spotlight. the
advantage of having such a significant success at a young age is that you have
opportunities that other people wouldn't have. but there are disadvantages, too.
you're more exposed and don't have the chance to make mistakes quietly, as you
would in a career that starts off with less noise. people really admire the fact
that she has stuck at it and dealt with all of that prejudice. i think she's
finally paid her dues."
fight club director david fincher, who also
directed seven and the game, agrees. "brad and i were watching the wings of
the dove," he remembers, "and we thought if you took helena's face and
it wasn't in some period garb, it could really work for our movie. and what an
actor. she's incredibly physical. she's not an intellectual actor, which is
surprising, because in the past she's played such restrained characters. but
[fight club's] maria has her chin thrust forward with her head down. when helena
came on set, you could see she was either ready or she wasn't. when she was
ready, no matter what you said, she wouldn't look at you; she was in marla mode.
she was like this little train burrowing along with puffs of cigarette smoke
trailing behind her."
fight club is a smart, psychological, blackly
humorous drama based on the novel written by chuck palahniuk, a portland,
oregon, diesel mechanic and technical writer jotted down plot threads while
fixing trucks. ed norton stars as jack, a disaffected office drone whose social
life consists of attending support-group meetings for those afflicted with
problems he hasn't got. he recognizes a fellow fraud in bonham carter's marla
when she shows up at a testicular cancer night, and she goes on to play a
pivotal role in jack's relationship with a maniacal, envelope-pushing after ego
played by brad pitt. "it's a real men's picture," says bonham carter,
"about two young men who set up an amateur bare-knuckle fighting club and
the woman who comes between them. it could be described as raging bull crossed
with harold and maude. but i'm in the harold and maude bit, you see."
working in los angeles opposite a pair of
top-tier hotshots was slightly different from stepping onto a set with ismail
merchant behind the monitor. "ed and i tried to rehearse in a conventional
way," she says, "but it all fell apart. the whole film is about boys
being for once, boys, and ed and brad were always playing basketball. when i
suggested perhaps they could stop playing, because i don't actually play
basketball, they were, 'oh sorry, sorry.' ed talked a lot on set, and brad took
pictures. brad just looked like a god in three dimensions but was nauseatingly
normal. a lot of the time i didn't really understand what he was saying. he
speaks in this street voice. i don't know where he picked it up. fincher
obviously understood him; they worked together on seven, i think it's his own
brad language."
presumably bonham carter's next film, women
talking dirty, which was shot in edinburgh, will be less testosterogenic. polly
steele, its producer, enjoyed working with her star. "i've seen her in so
many contained roles that i didn't expect to find her such an ebullient
person," she says. "all i've ever known of her is period roles with
corsets and heaving bosoms. but she so isn't like that in reality."
she's not much like that in movies anymore,
either. there is a possibility that bonham carter's next project may be bridget
jones's diary, based on the novel that's been a bestseller in britain and the
states. the story is a detailed look at thirtysomething life in london and
scheduled to be made by the four weddings and a funeral producers. helen
fielding, the book's author, is convinced that bonham carter is bridget
jones—a disorganized, insecure, weight-obsessed woman who is always trying to
quit smoking (bonham carter once managed for six days) and can argue the pros
and cons of nicely pressed sheets. like bonham carter's recent spate of
characters, bridget is several generations removed from the hoop skirt. "it
would be nice," says bonham carter, "to really shed the corsets."
 
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