Helena Bonham Carter at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. Photo / Getty Images
The actress narrates an animated version of Quentin Blake's Clown — and her love of the circus has been the perfect preparation.
"I have always found that clowns seemed sad," Helena Bonham Carter tells me over a patchy Zoom call. "That's why they have to paint their smile on." She pauses thoughtfully. "I often dress in clown-like things — baggy trousers, braces, white face . . . I love a white face. I don't know where that comes from. I like any mask, to be honest. Anything that stops me from being me."
Bonham Carter has been feeling the tears of a clown a lot this year. She has seen her industry struggle and worries for younger performers. She has been mourning one of her beloved friends — Nell Gifford, the founder of Giffords Circus — and she has just finished narrating Channel 4's animated version of Clown, Quentin Blake's wordless book about a toy who is determined to escape the dustbin he has been thrown into and to build a new life for his fellow binned playthings.
"The clown has been discarded on Christmas night, rejected and forgotten, and the story is about how he's found again and how, through being loved, he comes to life," she says. "It's very poetic and touching. The pathos of the clown."
In recording it she found herself thinking a lot about Nell, who died a year ago. They met years ago when Gifford's traditional circus — vintage tents, old-school performances and artful storylines, written and directed by the mighty Cal McCrystal — was just making its reputation.
"We had similar backgrounds," Bonham Carter says. "Both of us had a parent who had a traumatic brain injury, and our response was similar — an instinct to create our own worlds. She ran off to the circus. And when my amazing father's brain tumour operation went wrong, I found an agent to help me live as other people. Our lives went through similar things — children, divorce — and we helped each other jump on to the next step. When she died it was very sudden. She had cancer, but I thought she would defy everything."
The film of Quentin Blake's book, published in 1995 and told entirely in pictures, is the first offering from Eagle Eye Drama, the production company launched by the team behind the TV drama brand Walter Presents. Walter Iuzzolino, its founder, recalls his route into showbiz began when, as a six-year-old in Italy, he watched the Disney Silly Symphony Santa's Workshop on television.
"It was a symphony of movement as the elves worked to create the toys and paint the sleigh," he says. "It was a hand-drawn piece of 1930s modernist art. I asked my grandparents who did this, and they explained what a producer was. At that point I knew what I wanted to be."
The animation itself was Covid-induced. Eagle Eye had a drama ready to go into production when lockdown closed things down. Iuzzolino realised a replacement project could be created by animators working at home. The team had always loved Quentin Blake and was delighted to find the option on Clown was available.
"With Quentin's drawings being so beautiful, we immediately discarded the CGI PlayStation animation that's everywhere today — and I hate it," he says. "We went back to the roots of the craft. I wanted to create my own Silly Symphony. We found artists and animators in the UK, Italy and around the world, and had to produce 30,000 frames, working around the clock while recording the score one instrument at a time.
"And then we met Helena — her voice is like the finest Belgian chocolate melted on a Viennese cake. At our first meeting she talked about Giulietta Masina, Mrs Fellini, in La Strada, and I knew she understood the tinge of nostalgia, sadness and melancholy about the clown."
Bonham Carter is flattered, but slightly unsure. "I'm narrating, although I think the cartoon might have been better without me," she says modestly. "For the genuine children watching, it may help to have my voice guiding them through the story. It has no words as a book, so I'm not doing any characters. I am just the voice-of-God narrator." She pauses and thinks that through approvingly. "Voice of God. I like that. I'll try that on my children — 'I am the voice of God today!'"
She remembers the conversation about Masina. It was her husband's film La Strada — about a brutish circus strongman, played by Anthony Quinn, and his little clown assistant, played by Masina — that began Bonham Carter's loving relationship with clowns and circus. "I always found the mainstream Zippo-style circus too loud and brash and in-your-face, although I suppose I was always drawn to clowns," she says. "Why else would I dress like them?"
Does that mask thing work? Does it protect her? "Of course it doesn't," she says, sighing. "It's more likely to reveal the internal you. I get excited about acting because it holds the promise that you could become someone else. Then you see yourself and go, 'Dang, again I didn't do it. Again I'm revealing myself.'" She bursts out laughing, a full throaty chuckle.
"When will I get the message?" she says. She's 54. "I'm always doing too much. Early on in my career I was told by a director I have an expressive face, and I've been trying to keep it in check ever since. And words! I use far too many words. Even my name has too many words in it. The bane of my flipping life. Can I have your autograph? Ugh. It has 18 letters. Brad Pitt only has eight." And she chuckles again.
Having fallen for Masina, she found herself drawn to the circus in the most unexpected ways. "I love the circus family that goes back for years — handing the skills down to the next generation," she explains. "So the only showbiz thing I forced Billy and Nell, my children, to do was tap dance. It's not circus, but it felt connected. I tortured the hell out of them by dragging them along every Saturday morning — it's the only vicarious ambition I'm ever going to force on them."
Has she never considered clowning herself? "I can't run away and join the circus, I have responsibilities," she chides. "Nell and I did have serious chats about an act, but we never got around to details. At one point I was going to descend on a moon singing a song, possibly going commando." She sniggers. "I think one day I will get into the ring somehow."
For the photoshoot she seems to have gone halfway towards the big top. Her look is based on Masina's little clown — a bowler hat and big boots. "Doing the photoshoot was very cathartic, and I'm afraid I did rather take it to the limit . . ." Her laugh bubbles up again. "I'm a Covid-starved actress, I haven't had a part for a year, so give me a costume and I will go for it. My children are 17 and 13, so they are no longer prepared to dance with me — photoshoots are my chance to dance by myself. I had the music on and was throwing myself around."
I have the same problem, I confess. My daughters used to dance with me in the kitchen, but now find the idea of Dad dancing a crippling embarrassment. She is outraged. "We don't have to say goodbye to their childhood just because they have," she exclaims. "Have you read The Velveteen Rabbit?" I have, I say, but I can't these days. It breaks my ageing parental heart.
"But think about what the story says," she urges. "It's like Clown. These toys are the classic result of children growing up. They are discarded, and it's an emblem of age. The rabbit is losing its ears, but that's because it's been so loved. You and me, our faces can sag and our bits can fall off, but that's because we are being loved." I give a small gasp. She gives a determined nod. "You remember that this Christmas, Stephen. You hold on to your children's childhood. Don't let them take it away. Carry on dancing. Spread the word! Parents and teen-agers: carry on dancing!"
Written by: Stephen Armstrong
© The Times of London
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