Daily Mail, 21 March 2014
By Sebastian Shakespeare

Sir Kenneth Branagh left his first wife, Emma Thompson, after falling in love with Helena Bonham Carter despite her famously eccentric fashion sense.

Now, Bonham Carter says her reunion with Branagh in the 'Cinderella' film he is directing for Disney is proving a painful experience — because of the size and outlandish design of her costume.

‘It’s the biggest I’ve ever worn, and the most extraordinary thing is that it lights up,’ says the 47-year-old actress, who plays the Fairy Godmother. ‘LED lights are sewn into the dress, which has a battery pack that weighs 15lb. It’s so heavy, I’m a walking disaster wearing it.’

Her six-year-old daughter, Nell, was unimpressed.

‘You’d think she would like me playing a fairy godmother, but she is less of a girly girl,’ Helena tells me at the opening of High’s flagship store in Mayfair, where she sported a typically daft headband adorned with roses to accessorise an unusually demure black dress

Bonham Carter, who also has a ten-year-old son, Billy, with American film director Tim Burton, adds of Nell: ‘She is a tomboy. I’m the opposite. I always wear dresses.’