The wildly wacky and supremely talented Bonham Carter reprises her role of Iracebeth, in the new cinematic adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s famed book, Through The Looking Glass.
In our exclusive interview, Helena reveals how she based Iracebeth on her own child when she was a toddler, why she quite enjoys having a ‘big head’ and what it’s really like working with Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway and Sacha Baron Cohen.
Here, we chat to Helena Bonham Carter about all things wigs, Alice and returning to the whimsy of Underland…
Tell us about your character, Iracebeth.
Iracebeth is the Red Queen, or was, as she’s not really Queen anymore. She was demoted by her sister, Mirana, at the end of the last film and has been banished to the Outlands, which is in the middle of nowhere. She gets angry very easily, which is her biggest problem…that and her enormous head. Personally I didn’t mind having a big head because it makes your waist look really small which can be very flattering. I did not like having to wear two bald caps however. It gets very, very hot under two bald caps.
How was it coming back to Underland? Has she changed since “Alice in Wonderland”?
It was great actually. It’s hard to believe it was seven years ago, but it was like saying hello to an old friend. I’d forgotten how much energy it takes to play this character because she acts like a 2-year-old. In fact, I sort of based her on my child when she was a toddler with those crazy mood swings. It has been somewhat therapeutic because I could be very demanding and I got what I wanted most of the time, and it’s fun to let my inner child out. Having said that, being angry all the time is really exhausting and my voice was usually gone by the end of the day. In this film we sees flashbacks which explain why her head got so big, and as we find out she isn’t the person we thought she was, which is often the case with bullies. They are usually the least secure and the most frightened. It was slightly shocking to see that no one had changed all that much, but it’s been great having everyone together again. It’s always fun to see Johnny (Depp) because you never know what he’s going to come up with…and he always has the best costumes. And what’s incredible about Mia (Wasikowska) is that she doesn’t look like she’s aged a bit. She still has the same sort of innocence, but then again she was always an old soul, and was, by far, the most mature person on set. Plus, on this film we had more costumes and proper sets, whereas on the first one we just basically worked in a space that was green where nothing was real and we had to imagine everything.
Tell us about the story.
Alice has been exploring overseas and comes back to England where she finds that she is needed in Underland. She sees Absolem, whom she follows to a mirror and then falls into Underland. It turns out the Hatter has gone sane because he’s convinced that his family was not actually killed by my character and her Jabberwocky, so they bring Alice back thinking she can save the day. She comes across Time (Baron Cohen) and steals his Chronosphere to go back in time to see if she can change things and save the Hatter’s family. Meanwhile, I want the Chronosphere as well, because I want to go back in time and become Queen again.
What was your initial reaction to the script?
I think Linda Woolverton did a brilliant job of coming up with a good storyline which used all the iconic images and characters and stayed true to the spirit, while also making it something that young audiences would be interested in. She really kept the story moving along.
Tell us about about Anne Hathaway, who plays your sister, Mirana?
In this film we get to see more of the relationship between Anne’s charcater and my character. It’s been great getting to do more scenes with her and having the chance to do different things with our characters and go deeper and deeper to find out what really motivates them. Mirana is easily the most important person in Iracebeth’s life, which is somewhat surprising when you see how they treat each other.
- Tell us about Sacha Baron Cohen, who plays one of the new characters, Time.
It is exciting to work with Sacha because you never know what he’s going to do and he is incapable of doing the same thing twice, which keeps you on your feet at all times. It was pretty difficult to keep a straight face when he did his Austrian accent with those speech defects. Iracebeth is stuck in the middle of the Outlands and her only real companion is Time, whose been pretty good to her. They are meant to be dating and do have something in common, which is why they are both horrible Autocrats and total snobs.
Alice Through The Looking Glass is out in cinemas May 27.
