July 19, 2025 • 11 mins
Since launching into the spotlight in the 1985 film A Room with a View, Helena Bonham Carter has gone on to lead a memorable acting career full of iconic roles.
Between The Crown, Sweeney Todd, Fight Club, the Harry Potter franchise and Ocean's 8, her film career has no shortage of iconic performances.
Her latest work is a starring role in the new film Four Letters of Love, alongside Gabriel Byrne and Pierce Brosnan.
She says the variety of roles she's taken on has been 'extraordinary'.
"There's been a lot of moving things, it's not been boring...I just did whatever was new."
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Helena Bottom Carter is one of the UK's most versatile
and successful actresses since launching into the spotlight in nineteen
eighty five is A Room with a View. She's acted
in a wide range of screen roles, from Harry Potter
to The Crown Fight Club to Sweeney Todd. Helenda's new
film is an adaptation of Nile Williams's novel Four Letters
of Love. It tells the story of strangers Nicholas and
Isabelle on the journey to true love. Helena Bottom Carter
(00:36):
is with me. Good morning, Helen. I thank you so
much for being with us.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
My pleasure.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Now tell me when a beloved Irish author like Nile
Williams adapts one of his own books into a film
and you get the call to be part of it,
how long does it take for you to say yes?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Well, there was a sort of I loved the book
like twenty five years before that call came, and it
was like one of my all time favorites. My mum
had given it to me and I was like, it
has us. It's an enchanting book and it and in fact,
at that time I thought, I need to get the
rights and I need to play Isabelle who is the
(01:13):
young Asano? And then nothing happened. A lot of people
have tried it Stanny Toucu and lots of people, and
it went through different lives and it is basically an
impossible book to adapt. So then when it came twenty
five years later, Niall actually wrote to me this message.
I was trying to find it last night and I thought, oh,
my god, he wants me to play Margaret Gore. Oh
(01:34):
it's meant And because a lot of the book is
about destiny and fate, I thought, oh, the book has
now come to life, and now I'm inveigling eggs in
vaguing me into me involved in it. So it was
a sort of fateful thing. And the man I met Polly,
I thought, who's got such a huge amount of Margaret
Gore in her? I shear determination. I thought, yeah, I
(01:58):
think I'm meant to be doing this. I mean, it
wasn't a difficult. It wasn't a difficult, yes, because who
didn't go to Ireland for three months and work on
one of the best novels of all time and have
to be irish.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Absolutely. Margaret, the character you play, she fear wells her
daughter off the island to finish school on the mainland,
and it's a difficult time for a mother, isn't it
navigating how to allow your children to become independent and
live their own lives and make their own decisions. Did
you relate to that age and stage of motherhood?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Yeah? I think she says something about they leave their
childhood home only to visit it, but you know that's it.
They're just visiting childhood's not ever moving back. Yeah. I mean,
I've got a twenty one year old boy who went
to UNI and I still got one at home. But
I'm dreading her leaving. It's a horrible time. It's one
(02:58):
of those stages the rights of passages.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
The film is filled with poets and painters and musicians,
people driven to understand the world around them through art,
and obviously this is something that you do for a living,
But in general, do you think it's something that we
still treasure enough today?
Speaker 3 (03:15):
How do you mean?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Well, I just wonder in this world we're on our
phones the whole time, where you know, we communicate with
people through our phones. We're sort of living in a
completely different world. I just love the way these characters
sort of embrace the world around and felt that, you know,
they had to paint and write poetry, and there's music
(03:36):
in this film. You know, it's of how people express themselves,
you know, not via on Instagram post.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
No, I do think it's the world has been threatened
all the time in the world, and our brains and
a free times being eaten up by this monster of
Instagram and the phone and purchase and consuming. I mean,
I know myself because I'm very seduced by that insta entertainment.
(04:05):
There was a time in the book, in the film
that we were filming I think it's Merlo Bay. It
was off. There was no signal, so like after the
moment of panic, wheneveryonem realized, oh my god, we're just
actually going to have to talk to each other. We
were all cramped in a tiny little cottage living room,
(04:26):
me Gabriel Byrne I can't remember, but a whole bunch
of us, and it was absolutely brilliant because he started
telling us stories and we couldn't be scrolling because there
was nothing to scroll. And I thought this is what
we lack human connection, and I have found it really
(04:48):
irritating on films lately that you know, being part of
a film is fun because there's a new family and
there's new sets of people and you can chat and
people just interact. But now you walk on a film
and everyone's just self involved on their phone, including all
the crew. No one could really give up flying monkeys,
(05:10):
you know. It's just like they're all involved in the
in the world in their phone and not this thing,
which is actually way more nourishing. So yeah, we should
banish them. I am. I'm also banishing phones on film
sets because it's just not very healthy, I don't think,
or it's not nourishing for our souls.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I also loved and felt quite nostalgic about the letter
writing in the film that you know, these days people
use check GPT to write a birthday card. We really are,
you know, we really are kind of losing the skill
and the art of handwriting and the personal nature of
letter writing.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Would you agree, Yeah, totally, I still have. I have.
I'm really into writing, So I've got a calligraphy thing,
and I love ink, and I like the physicality and
of paper and pen and that I've got a thing
about stationary so I totally. And I've also got an
aunt who is a calligrapher, a grouphologist who analyzes handwriting,
(06:09):
so you know, in her she's getting as soon people
there won't be much handwriting to analyze. It is really
really sad. The act of a letter is very precious. Yeah,
slowly we're becoming or vanquished by it, by technology and chatbots,
(06:30):
and but the letter. Yeah, four letters of love. I
think hopefully people will you know, react and will become
Luodites again.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
An incredible cast, as you mentioned before, Pierce Brosna and
Gabrielle Byrne, yourself also filled with some fabulous young actors.
You know, I just loved n Scaley as easy. I
thought she was really wonderful. Do you look at filmmaking
these days and think to yourself, you know, when you
obviously you've just mentioned everyone's on their phones on seats,
but when you're looking at these young actors coming through
(07:02):
in the industry there they're existing in is it completely
different to when you started out when you were young.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
I think it is very very different because I think
there's so many of them, but there were so many
of us when we started too, but all the self
taping that's happened, you know, over COVID. People don't necessarily
meet people anymore. Casting people don't necessarily meet the actors
meet actors just send tapes in It's a much less
personal thing always when it comes to it. People are
(07:31):
balls of energy, and you can't get to know someone
through just on the screen. It's connectivity until you meet someone,
I think you really can't know if what they're like.
You get the feel of the person and then see
how they interact with one's own energy. So I think
(07:51):
it's very hard. And then of course because of the phone,
it gets more and more facist. It's more about what
you look like. And yeah, I'm really glad I don't
exist in this time. And also all these people making
comments about you. It's a bit like being well known,
which I've been well known and know not to look
up what people think of me who don't know me,
(08:13):
because there's always going to be cruel. And now you've
got everyone being well known through you know, Instagram, and
people are so bitchy. They're bitchy when they can be anonymous.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
But I think something I've always very much admired about
you is that you matched to the beat of your
own drum. Would that be fair to say you haven't.
I feel like you've put boundaries up around you to
cope with this industry that you're.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
In the only way you can do it, otherwise you
go completely bonkers. And does it really matter? You know,
it's I don't want to offend anyone. God help me,
you know. I don't want to offend or hurt. But
if people don't like me, what can I do? I'm sorry,
So you know you're not going to please everyone.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Forty years since A Room with a View was released,
you were nineteen years old. That was the first film
where I meet you. You could say on screen You've
played so many varied but rich roles over the year.
Do you reflect on it often? No, not even a
gentle reminisce.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Occasionally I'll reminisce when I hear somebody's died, you know,
and then go back to then the younger self that
I was with, you know, when I was with that person,
I mean, or I meet someone, you know. I've met
a lot of people, which is I think the greatest
gift by product of this working in this career so long,
(09:39):
so I've had so many fun. It's also been a
lark and a laugh because you get all this stories
and then and getting to know people as well as
the fiction that you're playing. And it's been The variety
(10:01):
has been quite extraordinary of country place, people writing parts.
There's been a lot of moving, you know things, so
it's not been.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Boring and it's appealed to so many people across generations.
I mentioned tonight that I was I was coming in
to talk to you, and as I said, you know,
I first saw you forty years ago, and my sixteen
year old daughter tonight was really excited I was coming
to talk to you.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
I was. She excited.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, how many is it? How fantastic is there?
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Yeh? Is that Bellatrix?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Or is that possibly?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah? Like there's a lot of different It wasn't really deliberate,
but I just sort of did whatever was new. I
suppose there is a party, It go like, oh, well,
I haven't done that before. So but it's quite fun.
When people are veering towards you, you know that it's
going to be can have a photo or I really
liked you in and then when it's like unlikely, you think, oh,
(10:59):
that's another room that's going to be much an ivory person.
And then in fact, eighty year old woman the other
day veering toward them saying, oh God, here we go.
Loved you in fight Club, my darling, and you feel
like that's the most unlikely one that I thought was
very funny.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Helena, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.
Love you to talk to you, lovely to talk to you, darlie.
That was the amazing Helena Bottom Carter. Her new film
Four Letters of Love is in cinemas this Thursday.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks. It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Helena Bottom Carter is one of the UK's most versatile
and successful actresses since launching into the spotlight in nineteen
eighty five is A Room with a View. She's acted
in a wide range of screen roles, from Harry Potter
to The Crown Fight Club to Sweeney Todd. Helenda's new
film is an adaptation of Nile Williams's novel Four Letters
of Love. It tells the story of strangers Nicholas and
Isabelle on the journey to true love. Helena Bottom Carter
(00:36):
is with me. Good morning, Helen. I thank you so
much for being with us.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
My pleasure.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Now tell me when a beloved Irish author like Nile
Williams adapts one of his own books into a film
and you get the call to be part of it,
how long does it take for you to say yes?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Well, there was a sort of I loved the book
like twenty five years before that call came, and it
was like one of my all time favorites. My mum
had given it to me and I was like, it
has us. It's an enchanting book and it and in fact,
at that time I thought, I need to get the
rights and I need to play Isabelle who is the
(01:13):
young Asano? And then nothing happened. A lot of people
have tried it Stanny Toucu and lots of people, and
it went through different lives and it is basically an
impossible book to adapt. So then when it came twenty
five years later, Niall actually wrote to me this message.
I was trying to find it last night and I thought, oh,
my god, he wants me to play Margaret Gore. Oh
(01:34):
it's meant And because a lot of the book is
about destiny and fate, I thought, oh, the book has
now come to life, and now I'm inveigling eggs in
vaguing me into me involved in it. So it was
a sort of fateful thing. And the man I met Polly,
I thought, who's got such a huge amount of Margaret
Gore in her? I shear determination. I thought, yeah, I
(01:58):
think I'm meant to be doing this. I mean, it
wasn't a difficult. It wasn't a difficult, yes, because who
didn't go to Ireland for three months and work on
one of the best novels of all time and have
to be irish.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Absolutely. Margaret, the character you play, she fear wells her
daughter off the island to finish school on the mainland,
and it's a difficult time for a mother, isn't it
navigating how to allow your children to become independent and
live their own lives and make their own decisions. Did
you relate to that age and stage of motherhood?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Yeah? I think she says something about they leave their
childhood home only to visit it, but you know that's it.
They're just visiting childhood's not ever moving back. Yeah. I mean,
I've got a twenty one year old boy who went
to UNI and I still got one at home. But
I'm dreading her leaving. It's a horrible time. It's one
(02:58):
of those stages the rights of passages.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
The film is filled with poets and painters and musicians,
people driven to understand the world around them through art,
and obviously this is something that you do for a living,
But in general, do you think it's something that we
still treasure enough today?
Speaker 3 (03:15):
How do you mean?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Well, I just wonder in this world we're on our
phones the whole time, where you know, we communicate with
people through our phones. We're sort of living in a
completely different world. I just love the way these characters
sort of embrace the world around and felt that, you know,
they had to paint and write poetry, and there's music
(03:36):
in this film. You know, it's of how people express themselves,
you know, not via on Instagram post.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
No, I do think it's the world has been threatened
all the time in the world, and our brains and
a free times being eaten up by this monster of
Instagram and the phone and purchase and consuming. I mean,
I know myself because I'm very seduced by that insta entertainment.
(04:05):
There was a time in the book, in the film
that we were filming I think it's Merlo Bay. It
was off. There was no signal, so like after the
moment of panic, wheneveryonem realized, oh my god, we're just
actually going to have to talk to each other. We
were all cramped in a tiny little cottage living room,
(04:26):
me Gabriel Byrne I can't remember, but a whole bunch
of us, and it was absolutely brilliant because he started
telling us stories and we couldn't be scrolling because there
was nothing to scroll. And I thought this is what
we lack human connection, and I have found it really
(04:48):
irritating on films lately that you know, being part of
a film is fun because there's a new family and
there's new sets of people and you can chat and
people just interact. But now you walk on a film
and everyone's just self involved on their phone, including all
the crew. No one could really give up flying monkeys,
(05:10):
you know. It's just like they're all involved in the
in the world in their phone and not this thing,
which is actually way more nourishing. So yeah, we should
banish them. I am. I'm also banishing phones on film
sets because it's just not very healthy, I don't think,
or it's not nourishing for our souls.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I also loved and felt quite nostalgic about the letter
writing in the film that you know, these days people
use check GPT to write a birthday card. We really are,
you know, we really are kind of losing the skill
and the art of handwriting and the personal nature of
letter writing.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Would you agree, Yeah, totally, I still have. I have.
I'm really into writing, So I've got a calligraphy thing,
and I love ink, and I like the physicality and
of paper and pen and that I've got a thing
about stationary so I totally. And I've also got an
aunt who is a calligrapher, a grouphologist who analyzes handwriting,
(06:09):
so you know, in her she's getting as soon people
there won't be much handwriting to analyze. It is really
really sad. The act of a letter is very precious. Yeah,
slowly we're becoming or vanquished by it, by technology and chatbots,
(06:30):
and but the letter. Yeah, four letters of love. I
think hopefully people will you know, react and will become
Luodites again.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
An incredible cast, as you mentioned before, Pierce Brosna and
Gabrielle Byrne, yourself also filled with some fabulous young actors.
You know, I just loved n Scaley as easy. I
thought she was really wonderful. Do you look at filmmaking
these days and think to yourself, you know, when you
obviously you've just mentioned everyone's on their phones on seats,
but when you're looking at these young actors coming through
(07:02):
in the industry there they're existing in is it completely
different to when you started out when you were young.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
I think it is very very different because I think
there's so many of them, but there were so many
of us when we started too, but all the self
taping that's happened, you know, over COVID. People don't necessarily
meet people anymore. Casting people don't necessarily meet the actors
meet actors just send tapes in It's a much less
personal thing always when it comes to it. People are
(07:31):
balls of energy, and you can't get to know someone
through just on the screen. It's connectivity until you meet someone,
I think you really can't know if what they're like.
You get the feel of the person and then see
how they interact with one's own energy. So I think
(07:51):
it's very hard. And then of course because of the phone,
it gets more and more facist. It's more about what
you look like. And yeah, I'm really glad I don't
exist in this time. And also all these people making
comments about you. It's a bit like being well known,
which I've been well known and know not to look
up what people think of me who don't know me,
(08:13):
because there's always going to be cruel. And now you've
got everyone being well known through you know, Instagram, and
people are so bitchy. They're bitchy when they can be anonymous.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
But I think something I've always very much admired about
you is that you matched to the beat of your
own drum. Would that be fair to say you haven't.
I feel like you've put boundaries up around you to
cope with this industry that you're.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
In the only way you can do it, otherwise you
go completely bonkers. And does it really matter? You know,
it's I don't want to offend anyone. God help me,
you know. I don't want to offend or hurt. But
if people don't like me, what can I do? I'm sorry,
So you know you're not going to please everyone.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Forty years since A Room with a View was released,
you were nineteen years old. That was the first film
where I meet you. You could say on screen You've
played so many varied but rich roles over the year.
Do you reflect on it often? No, not even a
gentle reminisce.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Occasionally I'll reminisce when I hear somebody's died, you know,
and then go back to then the younger self that
I was with, you know, when I was with that person,
I mean, or I meet someone, you know. I've met
a lot of people, which is I think the greatest
gift by product of this working in this career so long,
(09:39):
so I've had so many fun. It's also been a
lark and a laugh because you get all this stories
and then and getting to know people as well as
the fiction that you're playing. And it's been The variety
(10:01):
has been quite extraordinary of country place, people writing parts.
There's been a lot of moving, you know things, so
it's not been.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Boring and it's appealed to so many people across generations.
I mentioned tonight that I was I was coming in
to talk to you, and as I said, you know,
I first saw you forty years ago, and my sixteen
year old daughter tonight was really excited I was coming
to talk to you.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
I was. She excited.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, how many is it? How fantastic is there?
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Yeh? Is that Bellatrix?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Or is that possibly?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah? Like there's a lot of different It wasn't really deliberate,
but I just sort of did whatever was new. I
suppose there is a party, It go like, oh, well,
I haven't done that before. So but it's quite fun.
When people are veering towards you, you know that it's
going to be can have a photo or I really
liked you in and then when it's like unlikely, you think, oh,
(10:59):
that's another room that's going to be much an ivory person.
And then in fact, eighty year old woman the other
day veering toward them saying, oh God, here we go.
Loved you in fight Club, my darling, and you feel
like that's the most unlikely one that I thought was
very funny.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Helena, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.
Love you to talk to you, lovely to talk to you, darlie.
That was the amazing Helena Bottom Carter. Her new film
Four Letters of Love is in cinemas this Thursday.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks. It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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