Born the daughter of a merchant banker and a psychotherapist in 1966 in Golders Green London, Carter is the youngest of three children. She has an interesting heritage as her great-grandfather, Herbert H. Asquith, was the former Prime Minister who lead the nation during World War I and was one of the longest running Prime Ministers in British history.
Bonham Carter in fact has a sprawling family tree, distantly related to the author of the James Bond books, Ian Fleming, and also has connections to Florence Nightingale, among lots of other gentry and diplomats. It's not surprising that she has planted herself so firmly in the spotlight with that kind of background!
"Her early life wasn't easy, her mother suffered a nervous breakdown when Helena was just five years old and her father suffered a stroke leaving him wheelchair bound. Bonham Carter has seemingly taken all of this in her stride asking her mother to read through her scripts to give a psychological insight into the roles and (when her father was alive) studied his mannerisms to apply to her role in The Theory Of Flight "(1998)", "in which she played a woman dying of motor neurons disease.
She attended a girls school in Hampstead, London and turned her hand to acting at an early age of 13 years old. It was her acting career that lead her to be denied admission to Kings College. Her grades were not the problem, it was thought that she would leave college to pursue acting instead.
Bonham Carter started out doing various TV movies from 1983 (at just 17 years' old) with her debut role in "A Pattern Of Roses". She had roles in many TV series and movies such as "A Room With A View, "Miami Vice, Hamlet "and "Merlin, "but it was her role in "Fight Club "that really stood out in our minds as her most memorable early movie roles in 1999, where she won a new set of cult fans for her role as Maria Singer.
"This set herself firmly in peoples minds as being the 'go-to' person for quirky female roles, requently collaborating with partner Tim Burton (whom she met on the set of Planet of the Apes "in 2001), alongside other Burton faves such as Johnny Depp in "Corpse Bride "(2005) and "Sweeney Todd "(2007).
More recently she has changed up her usual acting style in "The Kings Speech "(2010), where she showed that she doesn't always have to be type cast.
Of course, the reason why she was part of our Woman Of The Month poll was due to her role in the Harry Potter franchise. Most recently in "The Deathly Hallows "where she firmly put her stamp on the crazed Bellatrix Lestrange. There really was no better casting for this role.
FIVE THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT BONHAM CARTER:
1. Helena lives with Tim Burton in Belsize Park, London. They live in seperate houses with an adjoining doorway as they like their personal space.
2. Johnny Depp is godfather to both of Bonham Carter's and Burton's children.
3. In 2008 four of her relatives were killed in a bus crash in South Africa, so she was given indefinite leave during filming "Terminator Salvation. "She later returned to complete filming.
4. She's close friends with Nick Clegg, since they went to school together.
5. She speaks fluent French.
BEST PERSONAL QUOTES:
[On breast-feeding] "People say, you're still breast-feeding, that's so generous. Generous, no! It gives me boobs and it takes my thighs away! It's sort of like natural liposuction. I'd carry on breast-feeding for the rest of my life if I could."
"I should get a few ribs taken out, because I'll be in a corset for the rest of my life."
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