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THERE’S ACLOWN INME ...IT JUST COMES OUT IN DIFFERENT WAYS
Lending her voice to a new festive film, Helena Bonham Carter on why its message about the redeeming power of love chimed with her
Helena Bonham Carter once took clown lessons, but she wasn’t very good at it. Too shy, she believes. So she incorporated clowning into her famously eccentric dress sense with top hats, oversized trousers and big boots. ‘I do feel I have a clown within me, it just comes out in different ways,’ she says.
Voicing a charming new animation of cartoonist Quentin Blake’s classic children’s tale Clown seems like a match made in heaven then. The touching 30-minute film is about a toy clown who’s been thrown out with some other toys, but he retains a touch of magic and climbs out of the rubbish bin in a bid to find a new home. He faces rejection and ridicule but keeps picking himself up until, finally, he finds someone else to love him. It’s a story that encompasses so many different lessons about love, tolerance and loneliness, without ever being hectoring.
‘It’s a perfect story for Christmas Day,’ says Helena, 54. ‘It’s romantic and full of love, even if it doesn’t feel traditionally Christmassy. Clown is essentially homeless and Christmas is a time when we appreciate being at home, but it’s also a time when we have thoughts for those who aren’t.
‘It’s also a story about rejection, and this year will seem doubly isolating because of what’s going on. The Clown keeps getting thrown away and rejected, and I don’t think you can be alive without experiencing rejection. When you think about that, there’s something terrifying about being a parent. You worry about how you’re going to equip your children to deal with rejection.’
Helena used to read Quentin Blake’s books to her children, Billy who’s now 17 and Nell, 12, and also fondly remembers being read to by her father. ‘Clown reminds me of a story my dad used to read to me called The Velveteen Rabbit, which was written in 1922 and was about a bunny who gets tossed away as it’s disintegrating because it’s been loved to bits. But then it becomes real again. I think each generation will have their own classic, with the message that toys can come alive when they’re loved. That happens to humans too.’
After a heartbreaking split from director and long-term collaborator Tim Burton, the father of her children, in 2014, Helena considers herself alive again having found romance with Norwegian writer and academic Rye Dag Holmboe, who is two decades her junior. At the height of her painful split from Burton she bought herself a furry puppet called Pig, which she still has.
‘I’ve got a teddy that’s older than me, a dilapidated Snoopy that sleeps on my chin and a pig I bought in my 40s,’ she cackles, half-amused, half-embarrassed, over our Zoom call. ‘My pig was my transitional object to help me through middle age and everything. I saw him and I fell in love with him. He was very plush at the time. He is aged now, but I still love him. ‘I was going through a tough time and I constantly slept with him. He gave me love. He was always there and never left me. My pig, oh my pig!’ she laughs. ‘He’s very battered now from all the cuddles. But the thing about toys is we forgive them for ageing, don’t we? Like The Velveteen Rabbit. We don’t give them facelifts. We don’t want them to look new. Seeing the way they’ve aged is a reminder of how long we’ve survived. Their age is our affection. If only we were as forgiving of our human faces.’ Helena’s own beauty doesn’t seem to have diminished, and while this
latest series of The Crown has thrown up all sorts of controversy, her Princess Margaret has remained one of the stand-out stars. Earlier this month she added her voice to those critics calling for the show to carry a warning that it is a drama and not historical fact, insisting it had a ‘moral responsibility’ to do so. That said, she herself took her research into playing Margaret so seriously that not only did she talk to the princess’s friends and read every biography she could find, she famously used a medium to contact
Margaret and asked a graphologist to examine her handwriting.
She admits now that throwing herself into the research was partially to stave off her own nerves. ‘It was such a sensitive job,’ she says. ‘The bar had been set so high – Vanessa Kirby, who played Margaret before me, had done such a great job – and it’s such a high-profile role that I knew the audience had high expectations, because everyone has an opinion both on the show and on her.
‘I know all that research might sound totally ridiculous but it’s not. Firstly I love the research, but also it stems the anxiety I have, knowing I can walk on set really knowing that person. And once you know them, it gives you options. The writer, Peter Morgan, said to me in my very first interview, “The great thing about Margaret is that you could play one thing ten different ways and they’d all be valid because she’s such a variable character.”’
For the next two series of The
Crown the baton will pass to Lesley Manville, and although Helena admits she’ll miss the woman she’s played for two years, she says a little bit of Margaret remains within her. ‘I went to Rye recently, which is somewhere we’d filmed, and somebody pointed out to me, “Last time you were here you were in a Rolls-royce.” I do think I’ve come down in the world now I’ve relinquished the cigarette holder, the tiaras and the status,’ she laughs. ‘I took a few things to remind me of her though. I’m not telling anyone what, but every so often Margaret does pop back. I’m much more stern with strangers, and that is basically her. When people want something – like a selfie – I’m much more abrupt now. I’ve always been available and friendly, a bit too much. So she’s helped me with boundary-making and abruptness. ‘There’s a look I gave as Margaret that’s apparently rubbed off too, much to the embarrassment of my children. But it’s good to have when I need everyone around me to calm down. She’s not there all the time, but it’s good she can come back when I need her.’
She finished filming The Crown just before the first lockdown and says today she’s enjoyed the enforced break. ‘It was quite a relief to be told I couldn’t work. It felt like a precious time when normally we’re all so busy. I’ve been relieved not to have had to socialise as much, and one of the most remarkable things for me was cleaning,’ she cackles again. ‘I found I rather liked it; at least for a day or two. The repetitiveness was not so desirable.
‘I don’t know what I’ll be doing over Christmas – if we’ve learned anything this year it’s that we can’t plan for anything. But we should try to enjoy that. I always enjoy that time between Christmas and New Year. There are no demands, no decisions to make. Everything is suspended in time. If you’re healthy and solvent, there’s a lot to be said for that.’
‘I’mmuch more abrupt after playing Margaret’
They may look like oversized pepper pots with ray guns resembling egg whisks, but the Daleks have been terrifying the nation since 1963. Now they’re set to send us scurrying behind our sofas again in this year’s Doctor Who festive special.
Battle-hardened after many years of trying to conquer the Universe, the Daleks pose a threat like never before – and they don’t even have to defeat the Doctor. ‘She’s incarcerated in a space prison, put there by the extra-terrestrial police force the Judoon,’ explains Jodie Whittaker, who’s been playing the Doctor since 2017. ‘She’s held the Daleks at bay in the past, but appears helpless this time.’
Jodie says that she fully understands why people break out in a cold sweat when they see the Daleks. ‘There’s just something ominous about them – that tone of voice, that look. They’re not necessarily fast but there’s a creepiness about them. They’ve become iconic. Everyone knows they exterminate people, and as an actor you know you’re going to be upstaged by them. Everyone’s going to be looking at them, not you!’
The creatures that appear in Revolution Of The Daleks are the latest version of an extraterrestrial species that’s become famous enough to appear on a British postage stamp. ‘They’re like the Mini – iconic and ever-changing,’ says Doctor Who boss Chris Chibnall. ‘This latest version is a black variant with blue and red lights, and a sheen polish. They’ve undergone a makeover for a very specific reason that will become clear during the course of the episode.’
Facing the threat of the Daleks – at least until the Doctor can escape from prison – are the Time Lord’s assistants, led by Yaz, who feels the rest of the team, Ryan (Tosin Cole) and Graham (Bradley Walsh), aren’t pulling their weight. ‘Basically, the boys are lazy!’ says
Mandip Gill, who plays
Yaz. ‘The whole family is struggling without the Doctor, but it’s only Yaz who seems fully aware of the impending threat and tries just that little bit harder than the boys to find a solution.’
Just as well our heroes can call upon some help, then. Step forward Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), whose one appearance in Doctor Who since 2010, in Fugitive Of The Judoon earlier this year, paved the way for his key role in this special.
‘We really wanted Jack back,’ says Chris. ‘He’s funny, dynamic and an important part of Doctor Who history. And he was shot and killed by a Dalek before being given immortality by Rose Tyler, so he has revenge on his mind!’ While the special will also see the return of dubious businessman Jack Robertson (played by Sex And The City’s Chris Noth), it’s the swansong for Graham and Ryan, who won’t be back.
Jodie, who’s already filming episodes for series 13, which is due on our screens next year, says, ‘I’m looking forward to finding out how she copes with life after Graham and Ryan. The Doctor’s dealt with many changes in the past so I’m sure she’ll rise to the challenge once more.’ n Tim Oglethorpe Doctor Who: Revolution Of The Daleks,
New Year’s Day,
6.45pm, BBC1.