Helena Bonham Carter on playing Princess Margaret
Helena Bonham Carter, who plays Margaret in The Crown, claims the late princess spoke to her about the role through a psychic
THERE was a time she never thought she’d make it in Tinseltown because she had “fat legs”. But countless accolades, including two Oscar nominations, seven Golden Globe nominations, three Emmy nominations and a Bafta win later, it’s clear the size of Helena Bonham Carter’s legs has been no obstacle in her path to success.
And at 53 the roles are still streaming in for this talented, eccentric British star. Her latest role sees her playing Princess Margaret in the third season of runaway hit series The Crown, which was released last month on streaming service Netflix.
Helena takes over the role of Queen Elizabeth’s rebellious younger sister from Vanessa Kirby (31), who portrayed Margaret in her younger days. Season 3 focuses on the end of Margaret’s marriage to Antony Armstrong-Jones (played by Ben Daniels) and her scandalously taking up with Roddy Llewellyn (Harry Treadaway), a gardener-turned-failed pop star 17 years her junior.
Helena, who comes from an aristocratic family, says she had a personal connection with the late royal as her uncle, dashing war hero Lieutenant Mark Bonham Carter, once courted the princess.
“It’s weird, I basically went out with my uncle,” she told the UK’s Sunday Times.
She met Margaret at one of her uncle’s parties when she was in her thirties. “I remember going, ‘I mustn’t turn my back on her, I mustn’t turn my back on her.’
“One of her idiosyncrasies was complimenting somebody and putting them down at the same time. She said to me, ‘Oh, you’re getting so much better at acting,’ and I thought that was really funny.”
How does she think the royal, who died in 2002 aged 71,would react to her playing her now? “I think she’d be grateful I was getting better, since she’s been entrusted to me. If I was a shit actress, it would be like, ‘Oh no, not her’.”
SHE describes Margaret as innately dramatic so perhaps it’s fitting she was visited by the princess’ spirit during a psychic reading.
“I have a psychic friend and I was seeing her for something else, and she said,
‘Oh, Margaret is here. Does that mean anything?’ and I said, ‘ Yes, it does’,” she told talk-show host Graham Norton.
“I asked if she’d mind me playing her and she said, ‘I think you’re a better idea than the other actor [being considered for the part]. It was a typical Margaret thing.”
The chain-smoking princess also had sage advice for Helena. “Get the smoking right. The cigarette holder is as much a weapon for expression as anything else.”
As part of her preparation for the role, Helena met with Margaret’s inner circle, which included her three ladies-in-waiting and Roddy (now 72).
“He came to tea with me and Harry, who plays him. He was so fun and warm – that’s what Margaret needed.”
She believes the princess was misunderstood. “People thought her angry, rude and tough, but she wasn’t tough at all – she was highly vulnerable and often attack is the best form of defence.”
“She was somebody who had a low boredom threshold, someone with an active mind – and I think that’s why she’d medicate with drink. A lot of royal life is incredibly boring.”
DESPITE her own privileged background – her paternal grandmother was Lady Violet Bonham Carter and her maternal grandfather was a former Spanish ambassador – Helena’s childhood wasn’t easy.
When she was five her mom, Elena, suffered a nervous breakdown. Her father, Raymond, a merchant banker, was diagnosed with a brain tumour when she was 13. After doctors removed it, he was left paralysed and confined to a wheelchair. “I had a double trauma,” she says.
She later studied her father’s movements and mannerisms for The Theory of Flight (1998) in which she plays a woman with a degenerative neurological disease.
Raymond died aged 74 in January 2004. But her mom (now 76) has gone from strength to strength and qualified as a psychotherapist. “Mum is formidable,” Helena says. “The gift of her breakdown was that she didn’t break down when my dad was so ill, and she could have so easily. So I wasn’t shielded from pain, but what I got – which was the greatest gift – was seeing my parents survive it.”
The actress has had her own mental health issues, which have seen her doing “tons of therapy”.
“I’m fine now, but I’ve had terrible depression. I think it was a pile-up because a lot of my life has been lived quickly. A lot of it was emotional exhaustion. Now I realise I have to say no to things.”
HELENA has no formal acting training, having got into the field after winning a national writing contest in 1974 and using the money to pay for her entry into an actors’ directory. She made her professional acting debut at age 16 in a TV ad.
Aged 19 she got her big break in historical drama A Room with a View (1985). Many of her early films were period pieces, which saw her being labelled a “corset queen” and an “English rose” – not that she cared. “I loved doing all those costume dramas. I didn’t think, ‘Ooh, I must avoid being typecast.’ You can’t be dictated to by what others think. I do things because I fancy the parts and the directors.”
She got her first Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for playing a gravely ill heiress in The Wings of the Dove (1997).
In 2001 she met eccentric American director Tim Burton (now 61) while filming Planet of the Apes. She became his muse and he cast her in films such as Alice in Wonderland (2010).
They split up in 2014 and while they remain on amicable terms for the sake of their kids, Billy (16) and Nell (11), and even lived next door to each other for years, she doubts they’ll work together again. “I think we’ll just wait and see.”
Like Margaret she’s found love with a younger man – Norwegian writer Rye Dag Holmboe (32), whom she started dating last October. But don’t dare call him her toy boy.
“Toy boy is a really sexist remark. It implies he’s got nothing to offer other than his body, which is also fantastic,” she adds with a giggle. “But along with the body, he’s got a great mind and a great humour and that’s what I’m in love with.
“People are slightly frightened of older women, but he isn’t. Women can be powerful when they’re older. Why can’t we be sexually attractive just when our eggs are expired? Actually it’s much more fun because we’re freed of the terror.”
Speaking candidly about ageing in showbiz, Helena told Britain’s Town & Country magazine, “When I grew up, you were kind of extinct at 40 – and the parts weren’t interesting.
“It was always the girlfriend or the wife, and you were described in terms of what you looked like. I remember having such a complex because I thought I’d never work in Hollywood because I’ve got fat legs. Now it doesn’t matter.” It certainly doesn’t.