updated: 16/12/2005
I freely admit that Helena Bonham Carter is a long way from being my favourite actress but neverless she is unfairly pigeon-holed as an actress who appears in pretty period pieces. She herself has commented that she could play 5,000 drug addicts and still be known as Mrs Corset Queen. She may be right – appearing in a Woody Allen movie and Fight Club didn’t work: maybe Planet Of The Apes (and pairing up with Tim Burton) was her ultimate attempt to try to put the corset to bed.
Whatever, she has over the last ten years undertaken (with varying degrees of success) a wide variety of roles including: a bride of Frankenstein, a drug addict with bad teeth, an ape and a witch. Perhaps more importantly, in the context of this website at least, she is prepared to look radically different in each role and seems to have a fascination with prosthetics and fake teeth (seemingly wearing these at every opportunity):
I love the idea of prosthetics. I had done a bit of prosthetics – in “Frankenstein” I was a bit of a monster at the end – but I had never done a whole part under a mask. I loved the idea that I could be free of my face and inhabit somebody else’s.
In other sections of the site there are more images of Helena as: the ageing Jenny from Big Fish; the swamp witch from Big Fish including the makeup process; Susan Ivey from Novocaine; Ari from Planet Of The Apes; Karen Knightly from The Revengers’ Comedies in her various disguises; the disfigured Morgan Le Fay from Merlin; Elizabeth the bride from Frankenstein.