If youāve seen her movies, you know that Helena Bonham Carter is a master thespian, and one of the all-time great screamers. In franchises likeĀ Alice in Wonderland andĀ Harry Potter she has demonstrated the ferocious power of her voice, time and again, and she seems eager to outdo herself in the latest sequelĀ Alice Through the Looking Glass.
And although I talked to Helena Bonham Carter about her masterful yelling technique, we also touched upon the unusual way that theseĀ Alice movies adapt the works of author Lewis Carroll, and what itās like to scare small children. And when pressed, the star ofĀ Alice andĀ Cinderella says that the other Disney classic she would like to remake isĀ Bedknobs and Broomsticksā¦ which is actually a fantastic idea.
Alice Through the Looking GlassĀ is in theaters now.
Walt Disney
Also: Whatās The Best Helena Bonham Carter Movie Ever?
Crave: These films are very odd to me, because Iām a big fan of the books and yet the interpretation is so radically different in some regards. How do you respond to these? When you got the script for the first one and then this one, what was your reaction?
Helena Bonham Carter: Well, I always loved Lewis Carroll and all his ingredients, and the White Rabbit and āDrink Meā and all those images, and theāve always sort of lived in me. But I couldnāt actually remember the story of the first book. So in a way, heās sort of talking about some nonsensical, mad world, and possibly like a dream that didnāt really have any chronological order. I thought it was okay for Linda [Woolverton, screenwriter] to off and invent a whole new plot, but paying tribute and being loyal to the original ingredients and characters. So I loved it. And also I was really chuffed to play The Red Queen because it was such a great part.
Were you aware of how much yelling you would have to do?
Not at the beginning. I didnāt realize the impact of the yelling, actually. You just go, āOh, Iāll be fine,ā but actually repeated yelling can be difficult! [Laughs.]
Whatās the secret? Do you drink a lot of tea?
You drink a lot of water. I drink a lot of water. But you know what? You lose your voice.Ā
Iāll bet.
You canāt not. There really isnāt much you can do.
Whatās the secret to good yelling?
Well actually they often kept it till the end of the day. Good yelling? Really think very, very precisely who youāre yelling at and why. Itās not just generalized yelling. Youāre really getting mad. Itās like when youāre doing a wand, like a spell with Harry Potter, David Yates was very demanding about the precision and focus, your mental focus on who youāre throwing at. So itās not actually about the physical. If your thought is precise about who youāre killing, or chopping their head off, thatās precise. See?
And yet we see moments of The Red Queen in this movie where sheās alone.
Yes.
And sheās kind of yelling to herself.
Yes, sheās deluded. [Laughs.] Sheās having a psychotic moment. Sheās in a psychosis.
Walt Disney
We find out more about her and yet the motivation for what drove her to madness, aside from a bonk on the head, really doesnāt seem quite extreme enough to justify genocide. What does that do for an actor?
[Thinks.] You just have to get your way there, where it is justified.
So where do you go? It started off with a simple childrenās quarrelā¦
Well, I think I probably had my own story in the first one, becauseā¦ it can start off and then grow. I think she had that episode where she felt betrayed by her sister, and she ran off in a huff, she hit her head, which was an accident, and then grew a tumor.
Yeah, basically.
It was a tumor. So the tumorā¦ itās not just an episode, itās a tumor. Then she had brain damage that grew and grew and grew.
Is that how it was described to you?
Within the first one, yeah. I [asked] Linda, the writer. I said, āTake me through the big head thing.ā And she said, āWell, itās a tumor, and if you have a tumor in the front of your head youāre going to have this thing of frontal lobe disinhibition.ā Which is, you just have no edit, and go from one to a hundred instantly, and itās the same as the emotional immaturity of a two-year-old. Itās completely emotionally labile. Thereās no control. Youāre completely available, totally vulnerable as a result, and thatās why she keeps on shouting at everyone because if youāre that vulnerable youāre going to have to try to keep everyone at bay somehow, you know what I mean?
I think so, yeah.
To keep yourself defended. Because sheās so vulnerable. Sheās damaged! Sheās walking around with a great big tumor on her head.
Walt Disney
Obviously, unless the makeup is incredible I imagine thereās some CGI involved in getting your head to that size.
They make my head big, yeah! I donāt push it. [Laughs.]Ā
What does that do for your performance? Are you careful not to use it too much?
Itās funny, because that shows how much the CGI had got more sophisticated. Like in the first one we were much more restricted about things that you could do, and I basically, when it came to my head ā making my head bigger ā there was this one camera, one of two cameras in the world that made my head bigger. So I had to just always be filmed on that camera, and we had to be careful about hands, and things coming between me and my head [and the camera].
On this one there was far less restrictions, but we still had to be told, you know, be careful about putting your hands up because then theyāre going to just literally take your head and make it bigger. So I couldnāt really put my hands up to my face. That was tricky. And sometimes, they just always reminded me, sometimes, āRemember, your headās a lot bigger!ā So coming through the door, or with Sacha [Baron Cohen] definitely, when we were working together, because itās like āOh, you couldnāt get THAT close.ā Or his shoulder was a bit of a liability because he had those huge shoulders. So a lot of the time we would have to just remember to give each other much moreā¦ he had to give me more wingspan.
Between The Red Queen, and Iām thinking particularly of Bellatrix LeStrangeā¦
Yeahā¦?
Do you ever run into small children who are scared of you?
All the time! Yeah.
Is that great?
No, I donāt enjoy it. I donāt mind it, I just try to reassure them. I mean I think itās fun, and funny, and I love that I sort of still occur in their imaginations butā¦ itās lovely. Itās great to sort of make themā¦ but then also Iām also The Fairy Godmother, so that helps.
Walt Disney
I feel like Disney might one day try to combine these movies into a massive Avengers kind of thingā¦
[Laughs.] Thatāll be hilarious!
Youāll have to be The Red Queen and The Fairy Godmother together, and wonāt that be awkward.
Thatāll be hilarious. That would be funny. No, I should have two faces, that would be good, wouldnāt it? Just flip āround.
That would be cool. Youād be two sides of the same coin.
You know what? The dress is so big I should have the head underneath. That kind of dollā¦
Where you flip them upside down?Ā
Yeah, that would be really good.
Thatās good. We got this.
Yeah, we got that. Sell it.
When you were doing Cinderella and you had already done The Red Queen, was there an element of āDo I get to be in all of these now?ā
No, I felt really privileged that they wanted me back, [that] Alan Horne wanted me. You know what? I felt like itās fun working for Disney. I love it. To be wanted.
Is there a particular Disney role that you would love to tackle?
I would have to seriously think about it. [Laughs.] Itās not usually down to me.
It should be though. I think youāre owed one.
Okay, letās try it out. Letās think. Do you have any ideas? Come on, come on, come onā¦
If Angelina Jolie hadnāt taken it you would have made a great Maleficent. She was always my favorite.
She was a good one..
Iām trying to think of the weirder ones like Race to Witch Mountain orā¦
Ooooh! Maybe Bedknobs [and Broomsticks]. We should do it!
That would be wonderful!
Do it again!
Weāre due for a new Bedknobs.
Yeah! That would be good. Okay, sell that one.Ā
Done.
Okay.
Deal.
Thank you. And the doll! Yes, good idea. Very good. Thank youā¦
Ā
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him āBibbsā) is Craveās film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on theĀ weekly YouTubeĀ seriesĀ Most Craved, Rapid Reviews and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
