HELENA BONHAM CARTER
Of period pieces and pimples
While shooting Flight, Bonham Carter and Branagh found a way to balance
their personal and professional relationships.
The London-born Helena Bonham Carter was last seen in her Oscar-nominated
role in The Wings of the Dove. In fact, except for the occasional foray into
Woody Allen-land, the doe-eyed actress, 32, is perhaps best known for period
pieces, starting with the Merchant-Ivory canon. In Theory of Flight she's a
wheelchair-bound woman with a fatal neuromuscular disease who hires Kenneth
Branagh's character to deflower her.
She and Branagh initially met as co-stars in the 1993 Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein and have been dating since 1996, a year after he and his wife
Emma Thompson split. Her next role is in Fight Club with two other beauts,
Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. Before heading home to England, Bonham Carter
spoke to PEOPLE Online's Bonnie Siegler in Los Angeles.
Q. Is it hard to do a movie with somebody you love, as happened with Theory
of Flight and Kenneth?
A. No, I think it's easier. It was certainly easier in this case. Given it
was only six weeks long for shooting, we didn't have that much time and I
think any warmth or sort of emotional intimacy that we had already just
informed it. There wasn't a love scene, really. And that wasn't originally
in the script. But that would not have stopped us from doing it. I think
there's a degree if you think it's too invasive and also question if the
press would be there -- the English press. Would this be a license for them
to be more invasive than they already are, which is not difficult. We didn't
want people to write more about us than the film. (But making the film) was
easy and he's terrific -- well, you know that. He has a great sense of humor
and he's fun.
Q. Do you rely on him for comment?
A. We're both good at reassuring each other if something has been in good
taste because we have the same sort of judgment. What's good about Ken is he
has a very unpolitically correct sense of humor. I love the film for its own
unpolitically correct sense of humor. He's always teasing me to get on with
it because I have habit of speaking in the voice of character just for
practice.
Q. How do you feel when you see someone you love having sex with some
gorgeous blonde, as occurs in this film?
A. It doesn't upset me, really. The sex scenes are so technical. The reality
of kissing somebody is nothing. There are so many other people around. You
are never really present. There is always a shut-off switch, a protective
mechanism.
Q. Does your mother pester you to get married?
A. No. She knows that is the last thing [I want to hear]. If she wants me to
get married, she shouldn't tell me to. I definitely want to have a child,
but not tomorrow. I'm definitely aware that it explodes your life, but I
have a few more roles I'd love to do. Having a child takes a lot of
attention and time. I think a woman should have a child when she doesn't
resent the commitment. Regardless how much a man says he will be helpful,
it's ultimately the woman's career that will change. And it's not a given
these days that just because you want a child, you will [have one].
Q. You are wheelchair-bound in this movie. What was the hardest thing about
that?
A. The head cranked over to one side was a decision I made day one which I
couldn't change my mind after that. It was very difficult. But after every
take, I got up and walked around. I first thought I'd do a Daniel Day-Lewis
and be very Method-y and doing that the whole time would give my performance
another dimension but I got too stiff and couldn't do it. I also knew that
Ken would never put up with me if I stayed in the wheelchair the whole day
and asked him to do everything for me.
Q. Do you ever look at your performances and say, well, that's pretty good?
A. Sometimes. Rarely, I suppose. But when I look at all the acclaim I got
for Wings of the Dove, I couldn't understand what that all was about. There
comes a point, though, where you think there's no point judging anyway and
you're just going to cause yourself grief. If it works for other people,
that's what I'm here for -- entertain others, without sounding too
Pollyanna-ish. I'd say this role as Jane is probably one of the best things
I've done. I've never been quite so emotionally and intellectually committed
to something.
Q. What was the Oscar experience like for you?
A. It was quite bewildering, quite overwhelming. I talked nonstop for six
months. Miramax certainly knows how to sell a market and I owe them, I'm
sure. An Oscar is a world event and you're talked out by the time this big
night rolls around. And I get talked out easily.
Q. You're going home now?
A. In February I'm going home, but not just to do a movie. It's a film
called Women Talking Dirty. Elton John is producing it. It's really, really
for women. So I've gone from a film primarily about men (with Brad Pitt and
Edward Norton) to doing a film principally about women with a woman director
-- it just felt right. It's about a friendship between two women.
Q. Finally, do you have any horrible habit you'd like to confess?
A. [Long pause]. Well since the age of fifteen, I squeeze my spots
[pimples]. That's not a particularly attractive habit, but it is a hobby.
[Laughs].
KENNETH BRANAGH
Of 'Theory of Flight' and thievery
Branagh stars as Richard, a ne'er-do-well artist/thief.
Irish-born Kenneth Branagh rose to international stature when he wrote (with
the help of one Will Shakespeare), directed and starred in Henry V for the
screen. While filming Fortunes of War in 1986 he met actress Emma Thompson,
and the two married in 1989 (they separated in September 1995 and later
divorced).
Branagh's most recent performances include that of the neurotic journalist
who is dazzled by the stars in Woody Allen's Celebrity. This summer he will
be seen in The Wild, Wild West. Now starring in Theory of Flight as Richard,
a Peter-Pan-like artist who can't quite face his own adulthood. Branagh says
he became intrigued with the project after Helena Bonham Carter brought it
to his attention.
Q. The subject matter of Theory of Flight is potentially very downbeat. Did
it help that you and Helena are a couple?
A. I always try, with the sets we work on, (to see) that things are very
disciplined and also very lunatic when there's a chance to do so. In fact,
the usual rule of thumb is the more serious the material, the more likely
hilarity is to occur and the more necessary it is. In this case, there is
humor and compassion on the pages.
Q. Compare the differences in the chemistry between you and Helena in
Frankenstein and Theory of Flight.
A. It was obviously different stages of our relationship. There was
something about this film that relied on a shared sense of humor ... the
ability to deal seriously with the utter gravity of her character's physical
condition, but that it's still entirely possible to laugh at it. This whole
issue of chemistry, I think, in serious work, deals with an intuitive sense
of humor.
Q. You are casting right now for Shakespeare's Love's Labors Lost?
A. Alicia Silverstone is definitely in as the Princess of France. Nathan
Lane is also in it. I play Barone. We are using old songs. I've cut quite a
lot of the play, which is very ornate Shakespeare and perhaps is one of the
reasons it's not done more often in the theater. Yet it has fantastic charm
and sweetness and a great degree of melancholy. We contemporized it but we
also needed to keep some classic status, so that's why we're using Cole
Porter and Irving Berlin lyrics about love, which is the subject of the
play. [Their lyrics can] stand up next to Shakespeare. At one point we
thought we'd do original songs but nobody had the guts to write anything
that would stand up to Shakespeare. Just to set it in the '30s, the lyrics
of those 20th century geniuses can do it. We start shooting in February.
Q. People know about your triumphs and your steady climb, but there must
have been some difficult times.
A. I think I've led a very blessed and privileged life. My version of hard
times would make many people laugh so ... I would say that I found it
difficult at times to adjust. In the wake of making Henry V, I felt that I
had arrived at a position in the business that I had not remotely
anticipated. I never anticipated myself as a film director; I was always an
actor. I was surprised that I even ended up as an actor in films; I thought
I would always be on stage. And also in the years that followed, I found it
difficult to adjust myself to what was perhaps perceived to be expected of
me. I did not feel myself worthy of the attention and all the praise that
had been lavished on me so it's taken a long time with a track record of
work that it now sits much easier with me now.
Q. You were barely 30 at the time of Henry?
A. Yes, I was just a boy. I was about 28. I look back at that period in
amazement. A lot of young actor/directors come up to me now and ask what the
most important thing is in directing a film and I am forever saying, "Just
make sure to have plenty of time beforehand." I had done two Hamlets the
Saturday before we started shooting, after a nine-month tour.
Q. How does it make you feel when people keep coming out to see films you've
directed and starred in?
A. Listen, I'm thrilled to have a kind of core audience where people are
interested in seeing what I do. Although it's still hard trying to raise
money for films, I'm also thrilled over the years of the access to
opportunity to try and persuade people to do things as in this case [Love's
Labors Lost], finance a relatively obscure Shakespearean comedy done as a
musical. It's humbling and over the years you find after talking to people
all over the world and get mail, the power of movies but it also lets you
know how these things touch people. They often make a real difference to
people. And it's not something I take for granted. I'm often surprised by
the touching letters but also delighted by them.
Q. Any secret confession you'd care to make?
A. I once stole from a supermarket in Belfast in 1969. The streets were
going crazy and it was mad. There was a riot and this supermarket had been
broken into and I, gripped by the hysteria, ran in and with fantastic
judgment, picked up a large box of soap powder [loud laugh] which I took
home as a trophy for my mother. I told her what it was and where I got it
and before I could say another syllable, I had a smack right across the face
so vicious and then was dragged by the ear back to the supermarket amid a
mob of rioting people. And I had to put the box of suds back on the shelf.