From paralysing nerves to surges of confidence

Press, 6 May 1987, Page 17

From paralysing nerves to surges of confidence

The Oscar-winning film, “A Room with a View,” has thrust two young British actors into the limelight. ANNE LONG talks to Helena Bonham Carter and Julian Sands about how fame has affected their lives.

Going straight from the classroom to stardom in your first film is the kind of thing that usually happens only in the imagination. But once in a while, Xeality turns out to be something that even the most inventive writer of fiction would dismiss as being too fanciful. And that is precisely where Helena Bonham Carter steps into the limelight. She was picked, from hundreds of hopeful girls, to play the star role in her first film, “Lady Jane,” at the age of 17. Then she went straight on to another leading part in the screen version of E. M. Forster’s novel, “A Room With A View,” which has won several awards and an Oscar nomination. Now, she has gone on to tackle a tough part as a drug-taking doctor in the American TV series, “Miami Vice” ... has joined the Oxford University Dramatic Society for a guest appearance in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” ... and been cast as the heroine in a TV movie based on Barbara Cart- ' land’s romantic novel, “A Hazard of Hearts.” All before her twenty-first

birthday. Helena has one vital quality — determination. When she was only 13, she won a nation-wide poetry-writing contest, and spent the prize money on being photographed for the threatrical casting directory, Spotlight. “I found an agent for myself in secret, without telling anyone,” she says. ‘‘l was precocious like that.”

She insists that her striking looks and the fact that her great grandfather was the famous Liberal Prime Minister, Lord Asquith, should have no bearing on her success. She dresses in a weird collection of garments which have been known to include her father’s waistcoat and socks, her grandmother’s black clogs, and her grandfather’s top hat! "I don’t attach any importance to my looks. They say my face is remarkable, but I think it’s irrelevant. The more attention I receive, the greater my reaction to hide and disguise.

“When I first saw myself on screen I was horrified. I was annoyed at how feminine and pet-

ite I looked. One of thos posh magazines photographed me and called me pre-Raphaelite, whatever that may be. You can imagine what it did for my friends at school — gave them one of the best laughs they’d had all term!”

Her pale skin, dark hair and brown eyes are no doubt inherited from her mother who is halfSpanish and half-French, the daughter of a former Spanish ambassador. Her looks were what first attracted the attention of Trevor Nunn, director of “Lady Jane.” It was, however, a gamble, casting her as the tragic Lady Jane Grey who reigned as Queen of England for just nine days in 1553, and was beheaded with her husband of nine months the following year, when she was still only 16 years old. Until then, Helena’s acting experience was minimal. She had played in school productions at London’s well-known Westminster School, had done a hi-fi commercial for television, and appeared in a small part in a television play. “Trevor (Nunn) took

me as a complete novice, so it was his responsibility to make sure that I came up with the goods,” says Helena. “He was wonderful, and gave me lots of reassurance, and by the end of that time, I WAS Jane. But I was permanently nervous.” Winning a star role in your first film may sound wonderful, but Helena has the intelligence to appreciate the dangers of being thrown in at the deep end. "I feel frustrated by my lack of experience,” she has said, frankly. Her own doubts about her ability, however, were not shared by the famous film-making team, Ismail Merchant and James Ivory when they cast her, straight after Lady Jane, to play young Lucy Honeychurch in their screen version of E. M. Forster’s novel, “A Room With A View.”

Set partly in Florence and partly in England at the turn of the century, it focuses on Lucy’s falling in love and muddled emotions with great sensitivity and humour. Helena’s own emotions, during filming, went from paralysing nerves to surges of confidence.

But the over-all experience was "terror to the point of destruction,” she confesses.

“My voice kept shrinking and dropping too low. I wasn’t breathing properly because of nerves — also, I was in a corset which can make you forget to breathe. I just didn't think I could do it.

“I was acting opposite Maggie Smith” — cast as Lucy’s chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett. “She’s wonderful but a bit intimidating. She again is a nervous person, and we were both locked in our little worlds of tension.” With two films behind her, Helena was unsure about acting as a future.

Sensibly, she returned to her studies, learned to drive and taught herself to type. When she went to Cambridge University for an interview, however, hoping to read English and Philosophy, she was turned down.

“They grumbled about whether I was committed,” she says — and admits that their doubts were valid.

When the Merchant-

Ivory team began work on “Maurice,” a film of another E. M. Forster novel, about homosexual love, Helena worked as a hairdresser’s assistant on the set, and took on a very small role in it.

For a young actress, however, the more varied one’s experience the better — which is why Helena flew off to the United States recently to appear in two episodes of the television series, “Miami Vice.”

Gone was the wide-eyed young girl in period costume. Here she was, jumping into bed with Don Johnson in her role as his fiancee, a doctor hooked on drugs. Although the producers had chosen her after seeing “A Room With A View,” they were taken aback to discover how young she actually looked when she stepped off the plane.

It worked surprisingly well, though. Johnson — often called the sexiest man on television — plays Sonny Crockett, who has an appreciative eye for the ladies.

“We kept , laughing about how we were a completely incongruous pair,” says Helena. "Crockett usually goes for blonde bombshells, and

here was this midget from England who looks sort of nineteenth century! But it was a great experience.” Helena’s next film role is yet another complete

break-away from anything she has done so far. She has been cast as the romantic heroine in a TV movie based on the Barbara Cartland novel, “A

Hazard of Hearts.” Her reaction is enthusiastic, even though it will mean going back into period costume, for the saucy, nineteenth century romance.

Ms Cartland, however, has decided reservations about the casting. All her heroines are fair, and nothing like the darkhaired Helena Bonham Carter, who admits to being sometimes . opinionated and outspoken.

In spite of the delight she takes in being mildly outrageous at times, Helena admits that she goes through periods of depression at her own inadequacies, and suffers from lack of confidence. But she is remarkably level-headed about the fame she has won, and a shade suspicious of its insidious effects. “There’s a seduction about it all which sometimes worries me,” she says frankly. “I see it already — the nice cars, the dinky caravans, and people doing everything for me.

“I’m extremely appreciative, but I wouldn’t like to think I was going to reach the point where I confused the way I am treated on a film set with the way I expected to be treated in real life."

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