Talk:Helena Bonham Carter

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- Usually I'm frustrated when I look at my films and I don't believe that I've made a real transformation beyond my usual sets of gestures and expressions. I still have this nagging feeling that it's me, that I didn't create a unique character.

- No matter how many modern parts I do, people still refer to me as Mrs. Costume Drama. Fight Club is a studio pic, and I've done very few of those. I've got a feeling it's going to change things for me.

- That year I was asked to present something at the Oscars with Matthew Broderick. I didn't know what to wear, so I just got a dress from my cupboard, a tulle thing. I shoved a skirt of my mother's underneath it and tied my own bow on the front. It had flair, I suppose, but looked a nightmare.

- I am so not Mrs Style. I am not your Sienna or what have you. I'm the Antichrist of fashion.

- Fashion is taken so seriously, all the fun goes out of it. All these draconian rules, so actually women are not expressing themselves. They’ve become sheep.

- People do seem to have a weird obsession with the way I dress and look but I don't think when I reach the big pearly white gates that they will turn me away because I'm not dressed well enough, but if I do I'll be like: My God, they were right!

- It would be nice to really shed the corsets.

- Our taste might be somewhat different to other people's, but when we watch Trinny and Susannah, we always think they make people look worse.

- I love changing what I look like because I always feel super strange whenever I do watch something that I'm in.

- I didn't want to feel like I got the part just because I slept with the director.

- Because I sleep with him he asked me to audition, you know?

- It was weird because I was pregnant, throughout that so it was weird being a pregnant witch. I was in a really bad mood but luckily, because I sleep with the director, he just sort of scheduled me so I only had to do it two nights.

- Most of my relationships were people in the business. Having said that, me and Tim don't really talk that much about work. He comes into my bit of the house every so often to vent but we don't really have very high, cultured conversations.

- The problems come when your personal life and relationships come under scrutiny in the press and often very uncomplimentary things are printed about you.

- Tim also has enough confidence so that it always looks like a Tim Burton film, but it really is collaborative. You're allowed to do it your way but of course he's always going to choose his way. - I buy him coloured shirts to get him out of the black. And sometimes he does actually wear them. But I certainly wouldn't change Tim. I did fall in love with him for what he is. He's adorable. He will always have the tinted glasses. And the hair.

-My son is going through a Daddy thing. It's always Dada, Dada, Dada. I'm like, 'What about me? Mama! I carried you around for nine months.' What did Tim do? He just had sex with me. It was all fun for Tim. All gain.

- I don't think kids have a problem with death. It's us older ones who are nearer to it, that start being frightened. - I'm not dead and I don't have blue hair but some people say there are similarities. It is usually intolerable to watch myself onscreen but this time it's fine. I think it's beautiful and a real work of art.

- I was sad that Corpse Bride was so short. I would've liked to have had her around for way longer. She doesn't actually have that many scenes.

- It didn't matter what you look like. You don't have to get up at 5:30 in the morning and there's a lot to be said for that. Corpse Bride can just play all my parts from now on and I'll just do the voice.

- That's the thing with animated films - I often feel that puppets get the better parts compared to us normal actresses.

- What I loved about playing the corpse is that obviously somebody else got to do the physical part. It appeals to the part of me that likes playing character parts and getting the chance to get away from my own physicality.

- The animators are absolutely extraordinary. It's mind-boggling.

- I've always wanted to be in a musical and no one would let me up till now. And so I had these two verses and I've always been an admirer of Danny Elfman and his music. You forget he was in Oingo Boingo.

- I killed Sirius Black!

- Carry out the deed!

- Longbottom, is it? How's mum and dad?

- Crucio!

- He knows how to play! Itty, bitty, Baby, Potter...

- You have to really mean it!

- Not only was it nearly impossible to hear because of these huge rubber ears we had to wear, but we also had these huge furry hands which were absolutely useless, especially if you had to scratch yourself.

- A corset, you have got to be kidding. I am an ape and yet I am still expected to squeeze myself into one of those damn things.

- You learn to rely on a few basic movements and use your voice to the greatest extent possible to convey your emotions. So there was a technical challenge there and a responsibility to create a character from behind the mask.

- I discovered that my normally hyper personality and movements are completely unsuitable for apes. I was in danger of flunking ape school at first until I began to get in touch with my inner ape!

- I hate this image of me as a prim Edwardian. I want to shock everyone.

- I have to struggle to change people's perceptions of me. I grew very frustrated with the perception that I'm this shy, retiring, inhibited aristocratic creature when I'm absolutely not like that at all. I think I'm much more outgoing and exuberant than my image.

- People have lots of misconceptions about me. My mum, who is half French and half Spanish, gets outraged when I'm called quintessentially English. I owe my looks to my mum-which was 90 percent of getting my first job. And, some people would argue, 90 percent of my entire career.

- Journalists are always calling my features Edwardian or Victorian, whatever that means. I am small, and people were smaller in those times. I'm pale and sickly-looking. I look fragile-like a doll. But sometimes I just wish I had less of a particular look, one that was more versatile.

- I also get fed up with the fact that casting agents and directors have this impression of me as being frail and petite. I find it very patronizing. I'm quite beefy and strong. I was a gymnast in school and I have lots of muscles.

- I could play 5,000 drug addicts and I'd still be known as Mrs. Corset Queen.

- Everyone seems to think I'm very ladylike. That I'm very cultured and intelligent. I drink alot of Diet Coke and belch. I've been known to use the F-word. I've told a few dirty jokes. I arm-wrestle.

- I drink booze, I smoke, and I'm hooked on caffeine. I actually have been known to swear at times and belch and even raise my voice when provoked. And I'm not physically repressed!

- I definitely like working with the same person twice-and three times and four times-particularly if they're Tim, because he's pretty good. And also, it takes such a long time just to get to know somebody and trust someone and work out how they communicate and what they want.

- I was like one of those nauseatingly nice children. I was very, very well behaved and boring.

- All the ancient classic fairy tales have always been scary and dark.

- I enjoy those small chats you have when people come up and talk to you about your work. It only involves a few seconds of effort to be nice to those people, and I am very grateful for the kind words that people have taken the trouble to express to me in person. - It took me so many years to move out. I'm definitely a bit of a Peter Pan, reluctant to grow up. It all seemed really nice at home-why change it? Part of me would prefer not to have any responsibility whatsoever.

- You can actually have a pitch button, you know, to get people on pitch.


 * I hate this image of me as a prim Edwardian. I want to shock everyone.


 * 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.


 * Multitasking? I can't even do two things at once. I can't even do one thing at once.


 * I'm the kind of actor who has ventured into escaping from me.


 * I don't think kids have a problem with death. It's us older ones who are nearer to it, that start being frightened.