Considering the intense security I had to wade my way through recently to visit Helena Bonham Carter at her Manhattan hotel, for a few moments it actually did feel like I might be visiting the Queen of England. (As it turned out, it was just the Israeli Prime Minister’s security detail.) Alas, no — just screen royalty, as proven in her latest effort, The King’s Speech.
The film features Carter as Queen Elizabeth, though to hear her tell it, she would have rather have played Elizabeth’s husband George VI — the King of England who, in the early years of World War II, trains with a speech therapist in order to lose a nasty stammer that’s plagued most of his life. Of course, that part went to Colin Firth, and Carter took a role she admits could, on paper, be considered thankless. A little more than a year later, she’s on her way to her second Oscar nomination. Movieline spoke to Carter about playing a historical figure who only died eight years ago, landing the role as Sonny Crockett’s girlfriend on Miami Vice and her infamous line that was cut from Fight Club.
Read the interview…