Oscar Profile #357: Helena Bonham Carter

Born May 26, 1966 in London, England, Helena Bonham Carter was the youngest of three children of Elena, a psychotherapist, and Raymond Bonham Carter, a merchant banker. She is the great-granddaughter, on her father’s side of the family, of former Prime Minister Herbert H. Asquith, and the great-niece of director Anthony Asquith (Pygmalion, The Importance of Being Earnest). She set her sights on an acting career in 1979 at the age of 13, landing her first job in a commercial at the age of 16. Her first film was the 1983 TV movie, A Pattern of Roses. She had her first starring role as an Edwardian heroine in James Ivory’s 1986 film of E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View when she was just 19 years old.

Bonham Carter’s rise was meteoric. She also had the title role in 1986’s Lady Jane, and had an amusing cameo in Ivory’s 1987 film, Maurice. She was Ophelia to Mel Gibson’s title character in 1990’s Hamlet and another Edwardian heroine in Charles Sturridge’s 1991 film of Forster’s Where Angels Fear to Tread. She had her best role to date in yet another James Ivory adaptation of a Forster novel, 1992’s Howards End, for which she was nominated for a BAFTA.

In a live-in relationship with Kenneth Branagh from 1994 to 1999, she starred in his 1994 film, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and had a featured role in Woody Allen’s 1995 film, Mighty Aphrodite. Later that year she starred in the Canadian film, Margaret’s Museum, for which she won a Genie, the Canadian version of the Oscar. Her performance in 1997’s The Wings of the Dove earned her numerous awards including her first Oscar nomination. In 1999, she played the female lead in David Fincher’s cult classic, Fight Club with Edward Norton and Brad Pitt.

Bonham Carter later enjoyed both a private and personal relationship with director Tim Burton that lasted from 2001 to 2014 and produced two children. During this period, she had memorable roles in Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd, Terminator Salvation and the last four Harry Potter films. 2010’s The King’s Speech brought her a BAFTA Award and an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth, mother of the current British queen. She also had a major supporting role in 2012’s Oscar nominated Les Misérables and earned Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for her portrayal of Elizabeth Taylor in 2013’s Burton and Taylor opposite Dominic West.

More recently, Bonham Carter has been seen in such films as Cinderella, Suffragette and Alice Through the Looking Glass. She has also been active on TV in the mini-series, Love, Nina. She has Ocean’s Eight in post-production, The Land of Sometimes in pre-production and is providing voicework for the currently filming Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero.

Helena Bonham Carter remains an acting force to be reckoned with at the relatively still young age of 51.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

A ROOM WITH A VIEW (1986), directed by James Ivory

The Merchant-Ivory team had its greatest success to date with this delightful adaptation of E.M. Forster’s novel in which Bonham Carter had her first starring role as a young English girl, accompanied by chaperone Maggie Smith on vacation in Tuscany. There she meets, but refuses to believe she’s fallen in love with fellow Britisher Julian Sands, accompanied by his father, Denholm Elliott. Back in Surrey, she becomes engaged to stuffy Daniel Day-Lewis while still telling herself she is not in love with Sands, who is now a weekend visitor to his father’s new home in the same town. Gorgeously filmed, with great performances all-around, including hers.

HOWARDS END (1992), directed by James Ivory

Merchant-Ivory, E.M. Forster and Bonham Carter were briefly reunited in 1987’s Maurice in which she had a cameo, but more expeditiously in this, generally considered Merchant-Ivory’s greatest masterpiece. Here she is the younger sister of Emma Thompson whose inheritance of a piece of property from Vanessa Redgrave is undermined by Redgrave’s widower Anthony Hopkins and his family. The once close sisters having a falling out that leads to redemption in the film’s heartbreaking climax. Bonham Carter earned her first BAFTA nomination for her performance in this beautifully wrought film.

MARGARET’S MUSEUM (1995), directed by Mort Ransen

In what was easily the best role of her career, Bonham Carter plays the proprietress of a unique “cost of coal” museum that specializes in shocking its visitors. What sends a woman screaming at the beginning of the film is not revealed until the end. Set in a bleak coal-mining town in Nova Scotia in early part of the last century, Bonham-Carter and Kate Nelligan as her acid-tongued, fatalistic mother both deservedly won Genies (the Canadian Oscar). There are strong performances, as well, from Clive Russell as Bonham-Carter’s bagpipe playing husband and Craig Olejnik as her younger brother whose coming-of-age story is also explored.

SWEENEY TODD (2007), directed by Tim Burton

On stage, Stephen Sondheim’s musical is usually cast with the bigger star (Angela Lansbury, Patti LuPone) in the role of Mrs. Lovett, the demon barber’s partner in crime. The emphasis in the film version, however, was clearly on Johnny Depp in the title role. It was he who got the Oscar nomination, whereas the most Bonham Carter could achieve as Mrs. Lovett was a Golden Globe nomination. The biggest criticism of her performance was that she was thin-voiced. I didn’t find her so, unless of course you’re comparing her to the larger-than-life singing of Lansbury and LuPone. The film is decent enough, but not the masterpiece it could have been.

THE KING’S SPEECH (2010), directed by Tom Hooper

The emphasis on this surprise Oscar winner for Best Picture was on the relationship between Britain’s reluctant king, George VI (Colin Firth), who gains the throne at the abdication of his brother Edward VIII who becomes the Duke of Windsor, and Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), the man who helped him control his life-long stammer. As Queen Elizabeth, mother of the present queen, Bonham Carter’s role is mainly to supply loyal support, which, of course, she does as delightfully as she can. The performance earned her the second of her career to date Oscar nominations. The first has been for 1997’s The Wings of the Dove.