Helena Bonham Carter Used A Psychic To Ask A Dead Princess If She Could Play Her On ‘The Crown’
“My main thing when you play someone who is real, you kind of want their blessing because you have a responsibility,” said Bonham Carter.
Helena Bonham Carter is one of our finest living actresses. She is also something of a kook.
After all, her best on-screen performances have seen her embody some of the strangest characters in modern film history. Consider her turn as Marla Singer in Fight Club, a perpetually depressed layabout with the inclinations of an anarchist. Or how about her role as a giant-headed living screech in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland? Or the smear-eyed Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd?
Well, as it turns out, that kookiness isn’t just saved for the screen. Behind the scenes, Bonham Carter has always been proud to let her weirdo flag fly, as evidenced by her one-time relationship with fellow goth Burton, and with the behind-the-scenes prep she has put into playing Princess Margaret in the forthcoming season of The Crown.
See, even the most strident of method actors would probably have settled for reading a lot of Margaret’s letters, or speaking to the people that knew her. I mean, Margaret is dead — she passed away in 2002 — so there’s not much else that can be done.
Not much else, that is, unless you are Helena Bonham Carter. ‘Cause if you’re Helena Bonham Carter, what you’ll do is go to a psychic, and ask them to speak to Margaret directly for you.
And hey, turns out that Margaret is flattered by the portrayal. As you would be, if the person that was bringing you to life was an actress with one of the most spotless resumes of the 21st century.
“She said, apparently, she was glad it was me,” Bonham Carter told a crowd recently, as reported by The Guardian. “My main thing when you play someone who is real, you kind of want their blessing because you have a responsibility.”
There you have it: Helena Bonham Carter remains a queen, onscreen and off.