Helena Bonham Carter

Her father, Raymond Bonham Carter, who came from a prominent British political family, was a merchant banker and served as the alternative British director representing the Bank of England at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC, during the 1960s.

Her mother, Elena (née Propper de Callejón), is a psychotherapist who is of Spanish and mostly Bohemian and French-Jewish background, and whose parents were diplomat Eduardo Propper de Callejón from Spain and painter Baroness Hélène Fould-Springer.

Bonham Carter's paternal grandmother was politician and feminist Violet Bonham Carter, daughter of H. H. Asquith, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the first half of the First World War.

Bonham Carter has two older brothers; Edward and Thomas.

They were brought up in Golders Green, and she was educated at South Hampstead High School, and completed her A-levels at Westminster School.

Bonham Carter applied to King's College, Cambridge, but was rejected.

When Bonham Carter was five, her mother had a serious nervous breakdown, from which she needed three years to recover.

Soon afterwards, her mother's experience in therapy led her to become a psychotherapist herself.

Bonham Carter has since paid her to read her scripts and deliver opinions on the characters' psychological motivations.

Five years after her mother's recovery, her father was diagnosed with acoustic neuroma.

He suffered complications during an operation to remove the tumour, which led to a stroke, leaving him half-paralysed and using a wheelchair.

With her brothers at college, Bonham Carter was left to help her mother cope.

She later studied her father's movements and mannerisms for her role in The Theory of Flight.

Helena Bonham Carter (born 26 May 1966) is an English actress.

Known for her roles in blockbusters and independent films, particularly period dramas, she has received various awards and nominations, including a British Academy Film Award and an International Emmy Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards, four British Academy Television Awards, five Primetime Emmy Awards, and nine Golden Globe Awards.

Bonham Carter, who has had no formal acting training, entered the field winning a national writing contest in 1979, and used the money to pay for her entry into the actors' Spotlight directory.

She made her professional acting debut at the age of 16 in a television commercial.

She also had a minor part in the 1983 TV film A Pattern of Roses.

Bonham Carter rose to prominence by playing Lucy Honeychurch in A Room with a View (1985) and the title character in Lady Jane (1986).

Her early period roles saw her typecast as a virginal "English rose", a label with which she was uncomfortable.

She is best known for her eccentric fashion and dark aesthetic and for often playing quirky women.

Her breakthrough role was as Lucy Honeychurch in A Room with a View (1985), an adaptation of E. M. Forster's 1908 novel, which was filmed after Lady Jane, but released two months earlier.

Bonham Carter's first lead film role was as Lady Jane Grey in Lady Jane (1986), which was given mixed reviews by critics.

She also appeared in episodes of Miami Vice as Don Johnson's love interest during the 1986–87 season, and then in 1987 with Dirk Bogarde in The Vision, Stewart Granger in A Hazard of Hearts, and John Gielgud in Getting It Right.

Bonham Carter was originally cast for the role of Bess McNeill in Breaking the Waves, but backed out during production owing to "the character's painful psychic and physical exposure", according to Roger Ebert.

The role went to Emily Watson, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance.

Her early films led to her being typecast as a "corset queen" and "English rose", playing pre- and early 20th century characters, particularly in Merchant Ivory films.

Uncomfortable with this image, she states: "I looked, as someone said, like a bloated chipmunk".

Her other films include Hamlet (1990), Howards End (1992), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), Mighty Aphrodite (1995), Fight Club (1999), Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), the Harry Potter series (2007–2011) as Bellatrix Lestrange, Great Expectations (2012) as Miss Havisham, Les Misérables (2012), Cinderella (2015), Ocean's 8 (2018), and Enola Holmes (2020).

Her other television films include Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald (1993), Live from Baghdad (2002), Toast (2010), and Burton & Taylor (2013).

In 1994, Bonham Carter appeared in a dream sequence during the second series of the British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, as Edina Monsoon's daughter Saffron, who was normally played by Julia Sawalha.

Throughout the series, references were made to Saffron's resemblance to Bonham Carter.

Bonham Carter, who speaks French fluently, starred in a 1996 French film titled Portraits chinois.

That same year, she played Olivia in Trevor Nunn's film version of Twelfth Night.

For her role as Kate Croy in The Wings of the Dove (1997), Bonham Carter received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth in The King's Speech (2010), she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Her collaborations with director Tim Burton, her former domestic partner, include Big Fish (2003), Corpse Bride (2005), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) as Mrs. Lovett, Alice in Wonderland (2010) as the Red Queen, and Dark Shadows (2012).

He died in January 2004.

For her role as children's author Enid Blyton in the BBC Four biographical film Enid (2009), she won the 2010 International Emmy Award for Best Actress and was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress.

From 2019 to 2020, she portrayed Princess Margaret in seasons three and four of Netflix's The Crown earning two Primetime Emmy Award nominations.

Bonham Carter was born in Islington, London.