CROWNING GLORY
Helena Bonham Carter used some unusual methods to research Princess Margaret for The Crown, writes Michele Manelis
FROM anyone else, the idea of preparing for a TV role by contacting a dead royal via séance would be considered a sign of madness.
When it’s Helena Bonham Carter hiring the psychic to consult with the late Princess Margaret, to research her part in the new season of Netfl ix’s global sensation The Crown, it just fits.
“I know it makes me sound even more crackers than I am,” she says, with a laugh “and I am crackers, but I thought, ‘ Well, why not?’”
And the verdict from beyond the grave? “Apparently the princess was a little concerned about her appearance. She thought I wouldn’t be brushed up or scrubbed up enough, but I assured her I could do that,” she says, keeping a straight-face.
In all honesty, the 53-year- old says she had prepared herself for her ghostly inspiration to disapprove, but without hesitation, she quips, “I would have absolutely said, ‘ Well tough!’ And I think she would have respected me for it too.”
In real life, the two had met before the Queen’s sister died of cardiac complications from a stroke in 2002; via Bonham Carter’s pedigreed family connections.
With her great-grandfather, Herbert Henry Asquith, Britain’s prime minister from 1908 to
1916, it was his high office which positioned many of the extended family in royal circles.
“She was very good friends with my uncle,” Bonham Carter says, revealing later that Mark Bonham Carter had dated the princess and met Queen Elizabeth while a Grenadier Guard at Windsor. “I remember going to Windsor when it was refurbished and she being all on her own. There was a sense of loneliness and isolation about her. She came up to me, because of the family connection, and said, ‘ You are getting better [at acting], aren’t you?” Bonham Carter laughs. “Well, I’d only been at it 10 years at that point,” she says, rolling her eyes.
Taking over from BAFTA-winning Vanessa Kirby as Princess Margaret, she joins Oscar winner Olivia Colman, who plays the monarch this season, which covers her reign from 1974 to 1977.
Despite thinking the idea of a royal biopic was “a terrible idea” before becoming an avid fan of series, Bonham Carter said “it was the quality of the show,” which saw her sign up so swiftly when creator Peter Morgan came calling.
“It was a gift, not just because it’s royalty, but because it’s about a family in an impossible situation,” she says.
The competitiveness between Princess Margaret and her sister, played out by Bonham Carter and Colman, is certain to be a highlight of the new season. “One wants to be the other, and in fact, they were born with the wrong disposition,” she says. “Margaret would have been entirely comfortable being a queen, while the Queen is an introvert and had to rise to the challenge of being that conspicuous … her natural instinct is to go plough with the horses. She’s a modest woman.”
The saddest aspect of
Princess Margaret’s life was her acrimonious relationship with her husband, Lord Snowden, coming as it did on the heels of her doomed romance with Group Captain Peter Townsend, the love of her life.
“They were both complicated characters and so confl icted. There was almost too much chemistry between these two people,” she offers. “They shared the same struggle … their identity was trapped between establishment and being a rebel, and they fit somewhere between the two. People who knew them said they were too alike, both needing the same thing, which was the most attention.
“They each had to be the star and so they combusted and extinguished each other all the time, instead of letting the other one shine. The world wasn’t big enough for the both of them.”
Reminiscent of the narrative around Prince Harry’s wife Meghan Markle, Princess Margaret was a polarising figure to the public.
“When she was alive, I think people tended to enjoy disliking her. I think The Crown has done a lot for her PR in a way, because I think Vanessa [Kirby] rehabilitated and rejuvenated her.” Unsurprisingly, her relationship with Lord Snowdon garnered much tabloid attention.
“There were a lot of affairs,” Bonham Carter offers. “We had whole departments researching that subject. I’d ask, ‘ Who am I having an affair with now?’ And you’d get a whole dossier.”
Of course, tabloid attention is nothing new to her, having attracted plenty of it over the years. There was her affair with Kenneth Branagh, her co- star in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in 1994, who was married at that time to Emma Thompson.
In 2001, she married another famous eccentric, Tim Burton, who directed her in seven fi lms, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland.
They famously lived in adjoining houses in London’s Belsize Park raising their two children, before announcing their ‘amicable’ separation in 2014.
Career-wise, she has a diverse and expansive resumé.
“I’ve played many roles in my career, and in fact, a lot of queens. I played the Queen’s mother in The King’s Speech, and the Red Queen in Alice in
Wonderland. But the thing about playing [Princess Margaret] is that she’s so fascinating and complicated, it’s impossible to get bored playing her. I could do it forever.”
THE CROWN
STREAMING FROM NEXT SUNDAY, NETFLIX (AVAILABLE ON FOXTEL IQ4)