Helena Bonham Carter, a two-time Academy Award® nominee, earned her latest Oscar® nod for her performance in 2010’s true-life drama The King’s Speech, directed by Tom Hooper. Her portrayal of Elizabeth, the wife of King George VI, also brought her Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award® nominations, and won BAFTA and British Independent Film Awards. Additionally, the stars of The King’s Speech won a SAG Award® for Outstanding Motion Picture Cast.
She was honored with her first Oscar® nod, as well as Golden Globe, BAFTA Award and SAG Award® nominations for her work in the 1997 romantic period drama The Wings of the Dove, based on the novel by Henry James. For her performance in that film, she also won Best Actress Awards from a number of critics’ organizations, including the Los Angeles Film Critics, Broadcast Film Critics, National Board of Review and London Film Critics’ Circle.
Bonham Carter also garnered a Golden Globe nomination and won an Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actress for her performance as Mrs. Lovett in Tim Burton‘s 2009 screen adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, opposite Johnny Depp in the title role. In 2010, she re-teamed with Burton and Depp for the fantastical adventure hit Alice in Wonderland.
In 2011, Bonham Carter appeared as the evil Bellatrix Lestrange in the blockbuster Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, reprising the role she played in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1.
Bonham Carter next stars in Tom Hooper‘s big-screen adaptation of the musical Les Misérables, playing the duplicitous Madame Thénardier. She is also filming a starring role in Gore Verbinski‘s actioner The Lone Ranger, with Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer.
Bonham Carter made her feature film debut in 1986 in the title role of Trevor Nunn‘s historical biopic Lady Jane. She had barely wrapped production on that film when director James Ivory offered her the lead in A Room with a View, based on the book by E.M. Forster. She went on to receive acclaim in two more screen adaptations of Forster novels: Charles Sturridge‘s Where Angels Fear to Tread and James Ivory‘s Howard’s End, for which she earned her first BAFTA Award nomination. Her early film work also includes Franco Zeffirelli‘s Hamlet, opposite Mel Gibson; Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein, directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh; Woody Allen‘s Mighty Aphrodite; and Twelfth Night, reuniting her with Trevor Nunn.
She went on to star in David Fincher‘s Fight Club, with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton; the Tim Burton-directed films Big Fish, Planet of the Apes and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; and the actioner Terminator Salvation, directed by McG. In addition, she has starred in such independent features as Novocaine, The Heart of Me, Till Human Voices Wake Us and Conversations with Other Women. She also lent her voice to the animated features Carnivale; Burton’s Corpse Bride, in the title role; and the Oscar®-winning Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
On the small screen, Bonham Carter earned both Emmy and Golden Globe Award nominations for her performances in the telefilm Live from Baghdad and the miniseries Merlin, and a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of Marina Oswald in the miniseries Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald. She also starred as Anne Boleyn in the British miniseries Henry VIII, and as the mother of seven children, including four autistic sons, in the BBC telefilm Magnificent 7. More recently, she starred in the BBC biopic Enid, playing renowned children’s storyteller Enid Blyton.
Bonham Carter’s stage credits include productions of The Woman in White, The Woman in White, The Chalk Garden, The House of Bernarda Alba and Trelawny of the Wells, to name a few.
This Biography/Filmography of Helena Bonham Carter is courtesy of Warner Brothers
