spent hours talking about her, mainly because they loved her... They
felt very strongly that a whole chunk of her character had never
been recorded.’
According to one, Lady Glenconner, the Princess had been told
from an early age, ‘probably by her sister, who was her best friend’,
that as her job was to be seen by as many people as possible, she
ought to do everything very slowly. Economy of effort was another
of the Princess’ trademarks; a different lady-in-waiting, Jane Stevens,
told Bonham Carter that Margaret’s lipstick was angled on two
sides so it took just a single swipe to apply colour to both lips. ‘That
typifies her,’ says Bonham Carter. ‘The less effort, the better, which
is very high-status. And she always wore a corset because she felt
vulnerable, it was her emotional armour – she said of herself that
her confidence was enamel-thin.’
Meanwhile, the hairdresser recalled Margaret’s lively wit and
intelligence – ‘she did her Times crossword in 11 minutes’ – and pro-
duced a lock of her hair for Bonham Carter to hold. ‘It sent shivers
down my spine,’ the actress says. ‘You can fill your head with bio-
graphical facts, but they don’t give you the rub of the person – the
energy, or the essence, or the idiom.’ Bonham Carter even enlisted
the help of a psychic to contact Margaret’s
spirit in the afterlife. ‘It sounds ridiculous,’
she admits. ‘I know most people will be
like, “Oh God, she really is mad,” but I defi-
nitely feel there are energies and people
who stick around...’
‘My psychic friend said, “Oh, Margaret’s
here, does that mean anything?” I said,
“Can you ask if there are any tips?”, sort of
as a joke, and it was actually very useful.
She said she was glad it was me, not the
other actress they were considering, which
is very Margaret – the thing with her is she
was often ambivalent, she’d say something
and you’d wonder, was that a compliment
or a put-down? And then she said, “You’re
going to have to scrub up, you really are.”’
B o n h a m C a r t e r b u r s t s i n t o a p e a l o f u n s e l f -
conscious laughter. ‘She also told me that her cigarette holder was
as much a weapon for expression as for what it actually did, and
I thought, “Oh, that’s a good one...” She was only about five feet tall,
so she’d do everything to elongate herself – her cigarette holder, her
hair, her tiara, the seat of her car was raised to make herself as big
as possible. Nicky Haslam said she had more of a complex about
being tiny than about being number two.’ (Bonham Carter is simi-
larly petite, but considers it an advantage. ‘It’s more useful as an
actor... I mean, if you’re tall, you can’t do anything about it, you can’t
chop your knees off !’) Her ultimate aim has been to show a more
rounded portrayal of the Princess. ‘I wanted to do her justice,’ she
says. ‘If someone does, as people said, behave rudely, there’s always
a reason. It usually means that they’re unhappy.’
The last time we met, in 2016, Bonham Carter was mourning the
end of her long-term relationship with the director Tim Burton,
with whom she has two children, Billy and Nell. ‘You break up, you
grieve, you get bored of grieving, and then you finally move on,’ she
says now. ‘I’m very happy with someone else. It’s been a bit of unex-
pected magic in my life.’ She and Holmboe now share a ‘fur baby’,
Pablo the Tibetan terrier. ‘Mother and dog are doing very well.’
Professionally, too, Bonham Carter is flying high. ‘When I turned
50, I worried it was downhill all the way,’ she says. ‘But it’s quite
the opposite. I don’t think I’ve ever been
happier or more fulfilled. This huge
blooming of television means character-
driven stories, so there’s a lot of choice and
a lot of work. When I was young, you were
considered “older” over 30.’ As well as The
Crown, and the forthcoming Sherlock
Holmes spin-off Enola Holmes, she has made
a documentary for Channel 4, airing this
month, that traces the fascinating war time
history of her grandparents. Her mater-
nal grandfather, the diplomat Eduardo
Propper de Callejón, assisted the escape of
thousands of Jews from occupied France,
while her paternal grandmother, Violet
Asquith, became the first female president
of the Liberal Party. ‘My interests are more
diverse than pretending to be other people,’
she says. ‘We’re really lucky as women to be living now, because
we’re allowed to do anything.’ In her case, this also includes singing
Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides Now’ on a charity album for Children
in Need (as fans of Sweeney Todd will attest, she can certainly hold
a tune), and partnering with Brora to create a pair of spectacular
cashmere scarves, one in pink, the other in the suffragette colours
of white, green and purple, sales of which will go to support Save
the Children. Gleefully, she shows me pictures on her phone of
herself with the models Laura Bailey and Erin O’Connor, hamming
it up with enormous knitting needles and giant balls of wool.
At a time when Britain’s international reputation has taken
some t h i n g of a bat ter i n g, it i s c om for t i n g to k now t hat t he t a lente d ,
intelligent and utterly original Bonham Carter is still out there,
flying the flag on the global stage. Truly, she’s a national treasure- whether she likes it or not.
S e r ie s t h r e e of ‘ T h e C r o w n’ w ill b e a va il a ble o n N et fl i x f r o m 17 N o v e m b e r.
‘When
I turned 50, I
worried it was
downhill all
the way. But
it’s quite
the opposite’