Director Tim burton returns with alice in wonderland, a 3d spin on lewis carroll's story. Sunday mid day chats with actress helena bonham carter on how she lost her eyebrows and her voice while playing the heartless queen of hearts
Director Tim Burton returns with Alice In Wonderland, a 3D spin on Lewis Carroll's story. Sundayu00a0MiD DAYu00a0chats with actress Helena Bonham Carter on how she lost her eyebrows and her voice while playing the heartless queen of hearts
What's your character like?
Tim (Burton, director and boyfriend) basically said, 'Well, of course, you're going to play the Queen. Look, this is the first drawing I did'. And there's this picture of a really angry person.u00a0 (Laughs) And I said, 'Oh, yeah, really?' And there's this horrible picture of this really old hag, with an oversized head, sort of growling. So, I play the Red Queen, who is a queen, and I have a really, really big head. She's got emotional problems. It takes nothing, practically, for her to lose her temper. Her tantrums are that of a two-year-old. I chop off people's heads. That's my solution to everything. It probably comes from an underlying insecurity about the fact that she has got such a big head, and everybody else has a normal head.u00a0 
What is the relationship between the Red Queen and the White Queen?
Not good, I'd say. Everyone seems to like her. I can't quite understand it. She's got the small head. I guess my parents preferred her, you know. They didn't like me, and they didn't trust me with the crown, which is really unfair, because I am the eldest. And everyone loves her, so she's in her palace with all of her herbs, probably doing a cooking programme, and I'm stuck.
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Anne Hathaway plays the White Queen.
Yes. She gets a really pretty dress. And she's lovely, Anne. We had a good laugh. In a way, we make each other's characters, we define each other, because we are the antithesis. What's so great about Anneu00a0it could so easily be the good, dull White Queen, but she's brought her own madness to it. She's a really clever actress. She looks gorgeous too.
Who plays the Mad Hatter?
Johnny, no surprise, plays the Mad Hatter, and it's another extraordinary character. Not that I would ever flatter myself saying that I'm remotely like Johnny Depp, but in a few ways, we are quite similar we never like to look like ourselves. We like to grab every single prop and every single disguise that we can.
So when I got to the set, I thought, oh God, he's got lenses! He's got an amazing look and costume, and he has every accent going on, as well! I'm sure Lewis Carroll wrote it for Johnny to play he had a premonition that in 135 years time, Johnny Depp should play the Mad Hatter.
What's it like performing to green screen?u00a0
I got to act with lots of green people.u00a0 They are the unsung heroes, all the actors who won't ever be seen or heard, frankly, because we had a legion of actors in green leotards reading for other characters. And they are brilliant. You always have to have something to act with, otherwise, there's a lot of looking at stray marks, tennis balls and things. It's all about imagining, anyway, acting they should just call it imagining instead of acting.
So, did having a big head affect your performance?
One thing I couldn't do was put my hand up to my face, which you do more than you realise, because then the hand would be inflated along with my head.u00a0u00a0 But the big hazard was I lost my voice pretty much every day by 10 o'clock, because the Queen shouts a lot. 'Off with his head! Off with her head!' It's quite exhausting losing your temper all the time.
Your props are quirky.
I've got a scepter that I always carry around, just to remind everybody that I am Queen. And then, I've got the crown.u00a0 I've got lovely pink spectacles (my idea), to play croquet with. I always drink with a straw, because my mouth is very, very tiny. I wanted an axe, but Tim said no.u00a0 Too literal.
And was the make-up complicated?
It's basically a weird cartoon version of Elizabeth I, so they took my eyebrows away and gave me a high forehead. I had a bald cap that extended from the fold of my eyelids right across my head. And then, on top, I had this glorious red wig, and on top of it, a glorious crown. And I had lovely blue eye shadow, which is Tim, because he thinks that blue is sort of a trashy colour.
There's a bit of Toulouse Lautrec, too. Both Johnny and I have clown elements as well, white make-up. My lips are perfect, a bow mouth, a little heart. It's a strong look. It takes about three hours to do. I'd get my head pasted down, my hair wrapped. Then, they'd wrap me in a cocoon, and I'd get to lie down and sleep while they painted me. When I'd wake up two hours later, I was a really unattractive bald alien.u00a0
Alice in Wonderland opens in theatres on March 12
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