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Helena Bonham Carter waxes poeticActress starring in 'Till Human Voices Wake Us'
By Todd Leopold
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- From the moment she was first sent the script, Helena Bonham Carter was "instantly drawn" to "Till Human Voices Wake Us." "It was like a chemical reaction," she said, relaxing in an Atlanta hotel suite. "It was a beautifully written movie, like poetry." Perhaps it was only natural that the script for the dreamy, darkly romantic tale of childhood lovers would be so poetic. The movie takes its cue -- and its title -- from T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The poem's theme of loneliness and fear of change echoes through the film, which stars Guy Pearce as an Australian psychologist traumatized by the memory of his childhood love, a playful girl who died when he was an adolescent. Years later, Pearce returns to his childhood home and meets a strange woman, played by Carter. Is she the girlfriend, somehow returned? Is she a ghost? Is she his festering memory? Is she something else entirely? The movie never explains, leaving the viewer to draw his own conclusion. The movie shares similarities with classic psychological thrillers, and director and writer Michael Petroni helped his cast get in the mood by showing them Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo," Bonham Carter said. Petroni may have wanted to buck himself up -- "Till Human Voices Wake Us" is only the second film he's directed. But Bonham Carter said he handled the experience well, helped by his script. "I just trusted the writing," she said. Different types of roles
After beginning her career with several period dramas, including "Lady Jane" and "A Room with a View," Bonham Carter has veered into a more eclectic choice of roles. She was the ape Ari in the 2001 version of "Planet of the Apes" (directed by her paramour, Tim Burton), an edgy, drug-addicted patient in "Novocaine" with Steve Martin, and a screwed-up girlfriend in "Fight Club." "I don't really have any strategy," said the slight actress, wearing a black top and a patterned black skirt. "I choose the best of what comes to me." She has no desire to take commercial roles just to raise her profile, she continued. "I don't think much of [big-budget] commercial films," she said. "It's much more satisfying [to pick a deep role in an indie film] than doing a cardboard character in a pop film." At 36, Bonham Carter still has her ethereal beauty, but she's starting to enter "older actress" territory. She's heartened by this year's Oscar nominations for best actress and best supporting actress, almost all of which went to actresses over 40. "It was a really good batch of roles, and very different types of films, too," she said. Eerie experiences
"Till Human Voices Wake Us" was filmed in 2001. Since then, Bonham Carter has starred as CNN producer Ingrid Formanek in the HBO film "Live from Baghdad" and has taken a part in Burton's latest film, "Big Fish," which is being filmed in Alabama. "Baghdad" was an eerie experience, she said. "Even when we were doing it, news was brewing," she said. The film aired in December; at its premiere, Bonham Carter watched it with Formanek herself. "It was weird," she said. She's about to start on a British miniseries in which she plays Anne Boleyn, the ill-fated second wife of Henry VIII and mother of Elizabeth I. She's very enthusiastic about the role, having read a great deal about the Tudor era. It's a time she's been in before -- her first starring role was as Lady Jane Grey, whom some credit as being queen of England for little more than a week. "It's as if I've come full circle," Bonham Carter said. Something her mysterious character in "Till Human Voices Wake Us" would appreciate.
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