While she may seemingly be typecast in period films, Helena Bonham Carter has proven her range and ability in a variety of roles in her relatively short career. As a teenager, the pale-skinned, dark-haired beauty won a writing contest and used the proceeds to buy an advertisement in a British casting guide. The great-granddaughter of British Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith, Bonham Carter has often been cast in solemn aristocratic roles.
To some, she has become the quintessential Edwardian heroine, particularly after her successful turns in several adaptations of E M Forster novels.
Her dark looks and heart-shaped face made Bonham Carter a perfect choice for her first film lead in Trevor Nunn s film version of the life of the doomed Tudor monarch Lady Jane (1986). Despite her relative youth, she was also able to project the requisite mix of hauteur and innocence required for the role.
Her second film, the Merchant-Ivory production of Forster s A Room With a View (1986), firmly established her as a screen presence. As Lucy Honeychurch, Bonham Carter perfectly essayed a young woman swept up in passion. She further solidified her stereotyping as a period player with her dead-on mad Ophelia to Mel Gibson s Hamlet (1990), by playing the impulsive younger sister of Emma Thompson in Merchant-Ivory s meticulous rendering of Howards End (1992) and her turn as the delicate love interest of scientist Kenneth Branagh in Mary Shelley s Frankenstein (1994).
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