I am genuinely looking forward to seeing Helena Bonham Carter play Princess Margaret in The Crown. She looks like Margaret, and I think HBC will be able to capture Margaret’s haughtiness and self-destruction. As it turns out, Helena spent time with Princess Margaret when she (HBC) was a child. And we already knew that Helena contacted a psychic to get Margaret’s permission. Helena talks about all of that and more with the current issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:

She doesn’t feel like a British Icon: “My mother’s half-French and half-Spanish. I was much more conscious of that side of the family. And I thought English roses were supposed to be blonde and blue-eyed.”

How she knew the real Margaret: “She was a lifelong friend of my uncle Mark. He was in the Grenadiers, I think, and he guarded Margaret and Elizabeth at Windsor. And then they met, and I think there was a romance. He was really dashing…” Bonham Carter recalls attending parties as a child at her uncle’s home in the presence of the Princess. Years later, after the fire at Windsor Castle, she was invited there to celebrate its restoration. “Margaret was on her own with a drink in her hand and she talked to me. She said, “Oh, Helena, you are getting better, aren’t you, at acting.’ Typical Margaret!”

She spoke to many of Margaret’s friends for research: Lady Glenconner said Margaret had been told “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.”

Justice for Margaret: “I wanted to do her justice. If someone does, as people said, behave rudely, there’s always a reason. It usually means that they’re unhappy.”

Breaking up with Tim Burton & moving on: “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 unexpected magic in my life.” She and Holmboe now share a ‘fur baby’, Pablo the Tibetan terrier. “Mother and dog are doing very well.”

She’s happy now professionally too: “When I turned 50, I worried it was downhill all the way. 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.”

[From Harper’s Bazaar UK]

I’m including a photo of HBC with her new (younger) man below. He’s very cute. Helena also went on and on about what Margaret’s spirit told her through the psychic medium, and that Margaret wanted Helena to “scrub up.” Meaning, don’t walk around with your hair looking like a bird’s nest! But if there’s one thing The Crown does really well, it’s all of the hair, makeup and costumes. So I’m not worried. As for everything else… Helena sounded very centered here. I was expecting her to be more eccentric? Maybe she’s becoming more lowkey as she gets older.

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Cover courtesy of Bazaar UK, additional photos courtesy of Backgrid and Getty.