Daniel Radcliffe Interviews Helena Bonham Carter

I am a huge Harry Potter fan girl. There is nothing quite like geeking out on all things HP with other equally crazy fans. I love it. My favorite character in the books and films (besides Harry of course) is Bellatrix LeStrange, the most diabolical witch on the block. In the films, Bellatrix comes to life thanks to Helena Bonham Carter, who is so absolutely perfect that it's hard to imagine anyone else playing the part.

Interview Magazine recently featured Helena Bonham Carter, in an interview by none other than Daniel Radcliffe himself. Color me the happiest HP fan in the world! They talk about all things Helena, from being raised in an exemplary family to being typecast to working with your love & the father of your children. I've posted a few of my favorite excerpts on self-expression and style below, but you can peep the whole interview over at Interview.

Photo: Peter Lindbergh for Interview Magazine

-------

On comparing yourself to others

BONHAM CARTER: Everybody has an inferiority complex when they step into a room. But then when you have children and you get older, it doesn't really matter. When I was young I had so many inferiority complexes. I had an inferiority complex because I didn't go to university. I had an inferiority complex because I didn't train. Then it gets tiring. And you do get bored of it.

RADCLIFFE: Right. And so that boredom is actually what ultimately leads you to go, "Oh, fuck it."

BONHAM CARTER: "Fuck it" is my guiding philosophy.

-------

Self-perception

RADCLIFFE: I think people see your career as almost having two halves, one where you played this kind of ingénue. And then there's a perception that around the time you met Tim [Burton], you started getting weird. But I know you'd been weird long before that.

BONHAM CARTER: I was weird right from the start. It's just that you can't ever expect people to get you. And I do think that really did mess with my head, being well-known young, when you really don't know who you are. This is how ridiculous I was: I'd sometimes go look at a written profile of me and see how I was described and say, "Oh, is that who I am?" You can't ever put your self-definition in the hands of somebody who meets you for 15 minutes.

-------

"Do you have to be the witch or the queen tomorrow?" I thought, Well, that's pretty much my life.

-------

Personal style

RADCLIFFE: Would you describe yourself as being into fashion? I know you have your style—self-expression, really.

BONHAM CARTER: All I'm into is dressing up. I love dressing up. It's like what we do for our job, get paid to dress up. So I carry on doing it in life, and I do put on a bit of clothing, and the clothing changes how I feel.

-------

On being typecast

RADCLIFFE: For me, it seems to be about getting audiences accustomed to seeing me in different things. There is never going to be one part that's going to totally separate me from 10 years in a part that I loved, you know? And I would never want to be totally separated from it.

BONHAM CARTER: I think in time, you will, darling.

RADCLIFFE: Really?

BONHAM CARTER: Honestly, people have such short memories. Absolutely.