HELENA BONHAM CARTER

I love witches and magic and dress-up and make-believe.

I was sad that Corpse Bride was so short. I would've liked to have had her around for way longer. She doesn't actually have that many scenes.

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.

I look completely like my mum. She's very foreign, very Jewish.

My father fell really chronically ill when I was 13 and that's when I phoned up an agent and started to act.

It would be nice to really shed the corsets.

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.

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.

I should get a few ribs taken out, because I'll be in a corset for the rest of my life.

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

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.

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

I also get fed up with the fact that casting agents and directors have this impression of me as being frail and petite. I find it very patronizing. I'm quite beefy and strong. I was a gymnast in school and I have lots of muscles.

People have lots of misconceptions about me. My mum, who is half French and half Spanish, gets outraged when I'm called quintessentially English. I owe my looks to my mum-which was 90 percent of getting my first job. And, some people would argue, 90 percent of my entire career.

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.

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.

I was weird right from the start. It's just that you can't ever expect people to get you. And I do think that really did mess with my head, being well-known young, when you really don't know who you are.

As everyone, you do end up becoming your mother, but also as you're acting, I find out you become every member of your family, bits come out without you really wanting them to come out.

I was a mixture of being incredibly old for my age and incredibly backwards. I was born quite old, but then I stopped growing. I lived with my mum and dad till I was 30.

I was reading William Shawcross's biography of the Queen Mother, dressed in my witch outfit! And you know what? It was a really good mix; it was a therapeutic mix.

I loved doing all those costume dramas. I didn't think, 'Ooh I've got to avoid being typecast' - you can't ever be dictated to by what other people think. I just do things because I fancy the parts and the directors.

I'm always attracted to lower budget, not because it's lower budget, but because they tend to be better scripts. It's the scripts that tend to be the small arthouse film that tend to be more actor-led and character driven.

I'm always attracted to lower budget, not because it's lower budget, but because they tend to be better scripts.

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.

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