Helena Bonham Carter Quotes Page 2

“If you're a queen, you're powerless, so I'd probably demote myself and go shopping.”

“Imperfection is underrated. Perfection is overrated.”

“In any relationship, after the first year is over, you can't help but want your own space.”

“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.”

“It was a challenge to be able to create a character without being able to use one's normal set of expressions. All the rubber and makeup attached to your face left you with only a modest range of facial movements.”

“It's different when you're an actor and playing a part, but when it's just you, you feel immensely vulnerable have strangers prodding and prying.”

“It's easy for me to go back to being a kid. You know how kids can be like savages before they get civilized? There's that s*dist quality. Y'know, like boys who like to pick apart an insect for the sake of it.”

“J.K. Rowling said Bellatrix's role was going to be significant in the last one, when I showed some reluctance in playing a tiny bit part. Up front, they said, 'You're very significant in the last one.' But significant could mean a lot of things. That could just mean a significant plot point. Doesn't necessarily equal big part.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“My mom being a psychotherapist, I've been brought up with that whole psychoanalytical terrain.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“There is no normality in life.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Very early on, you figure out that you put your self-esteem in the hands of strangers. There's a different commodity. There's the Helena Bonham Carter that everyone thinks they know, who really has nothing to do with me. But you just have to let that go.”

“Wear what you feel comfortable with. People say nasty things about what I wear in the street. I'm always in worst dressed lists, but you just have to dress for yourself and ­nobody else.”

“Wearing corsets all the time was completely incapacitating, as far as digestion goes.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Who wants to be normal when you can be unique?”

“Why do you put your self esteem in the hands of complete strangers?”

“With the number of people I ignore, I'm lucky I work at all in this town.”

“You become very angry and depressed that you keep getting offered only these exceedingly demure and repressed roles. They're so not me. That's why films like 'Fight Club' were so important to me because I think I confounded certain stereotypes and limited perceptions of what I could do as an actress.”

“You just have to do what suits you, and it doesn't matter if you don't look like everybody else. Be you. That's our gift and we've got to celebrate that.”