This script has been lightly edited for clarity.

 

Jace Lacob: I’m Jace Lacob, and you’re listening to MASTERPIECE Studio. 

For nearly two decades, Noele Gordon had been playing fan favorite Meg Mortimer in the ATV soap opera drama Crossroads. Gordon’s Meg ran the fictitious Crossroads Motel, a Midlands pitstop which she had converted from her Georgian estate and now boasted 16 chalets. It was a role that brought Gordon countless awards, and endless adoration from fans, who, you’ll remember from episode one, turned up in the tens of thousands to see her character get married at Birmingham Cathedral in 1975.

Gordon, or ‘Nolly’ as she was called, was a talent on screen, and an icon in the real world. After thousands of episodes of Crossroads, Nolly was a household name, an actor so beloved that she was dubbed Queen of the Midlands. What could possibly go wrong?

But by 1981, she was out of a job, fired from the very show into which she poured so much time, effort, and love. Noele’s infamous sacking came as a shock to just about everyone, including Noele herself. Shattered by this unfortunate and unexplainable event, Noele turned to her friend and collaborator, the popular entertainer Larry Grayson, who urged her back to her roots, back to where it all began…the stage.

 

CLIP

Larry: There, now. This is where you started, and this is where you belong.

Nolly: Larry, I am exhausted.

Larry: Nonsense.

Nolly: I am 61 years old.

Larry: Perfect age.

Nolly: Says the man who is retiring.

Larry: I was born middle aged. And you were born for this.

 

While on a musical theater tour in Asia, Nolly finally learned the truth behind her traumatic sacking.

 

CLIP

Nolly: Everyone keeps asking me why I was sacked. And I worked it out long ago. It was men. Just men, being men.

Hansa: Well, yes. But that man in particular.

Nolly: What man?

Hansa: What did they tell you?

Nolly: Well, they didn’t. But I want to know what man. What did he say?

Hansa: I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. Except, I was there. I heard every word. I’m sorry Miss Gordon, but I know exactly why you were sacked.

 

Back in Birmingham, England, armed with the truth, Nolly confronted Crossroads producer Jack Barton. The two finally had the conversation that they should’ve had long ago. And it ended with a glimmer of hope. 

 

CLIP

Jack: Come back Nolly.

Nolly: Hm!

Jack: No, I mean it. That’s why I wanted to see you today. I miss you. I want you to come back.

 

Gordon tragically died in 1985, at the age of 65, and until now her legacy as a television pioneer and acting icon has been all but forgotten. In the hands of writer Russell T. Davies, however, Gordon’s career — and her legend — has the opportunity to be rediscovered and reappraised by a new audience. 

While Gordon is no longer with us, Nolly is Davies’ bittersweet love letter to the Queen of the Midlands and to television as a whole. And Nolly herself finds new life, embodied in the spellbinding performance of another legend. This week, we are joined by Nolly lead actor — and newly minted BAFTA Television Award nominee — Helena Bonham Carter, who brought the dynamic and trailblazing Noele Gordon to our screens once again.

 

Jace Lacob: And this week we are joined by Nolly star Helena Bonham Carter. Welcome.

Helena Bonham Carter: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Jace Lacob: So, from Princess Margaret to the Queen of the Midlands, Noele Gordon, you have a penchant for playing, we’ll say, complicated characters. What was it about Russell T Davies’ script for Nolly that initially attracted you to the role?

Helena Bonham Carter: The script was brilliant. It was just instantly brilliant. In fact, I couldn’t believe it as I carried on reading it that it was getting better and better. It was all character led, really led by Nolly. Nolly was an incredibly dynamic character. I’ll say this about Russell’s script too, it’s I think the only script I’ve ever been involved with that there was literally no difference between the first reading and what ends up on screen. He writes so tightly and so precisely. And there’s nothing that’s unnecessary. He’s one of the greatest, and most gifted storytellers. I felt so incredibly lucky that it landed in my lap, and within the first page I thought I’ve got to do it.

Jace Lacob: You completed a ton of research prep for this project, including speaking to people who knew Noele Gordon, Crossroads stars Tony Adams and Susan Hanson, and even stage manager Liz Stern, among many others. What sort of image did they paint of Noele Gordon? What sort of image did they evoke for you?

Helena Bonham Carter: I think initially when Russell approached it, he thought, oh, she’s going to be somebody who’s very complicated and not particularly appealing. But then as he investigated and got to speak to people who knew her, he realized that she was, and through all these people that I spoke to, really loved and really respected. So quite a different picture. Not without flaws, which he definitely includes in the script, but somebody who was incredibly professional, very opinionated, clever, somebody who had come from nothing, she was an East Ender from East Ham and then made good, been performing since she was a child, a real leader of the company, knew exactly really how the show should be done. I mean, she was in it day in, day out for so many years.

She was formidable, but she was kind. She was a really good company leader, fun, funny. There was, which I enjoy sometimes, a confusion between her and the character. If you play a character day in day out, the line between you and the character can get very, very blurred as does it happen. That is very much in the first scene that you see her when she’s getting married as the character and the producer doesn’t want to film because there’s 10,000 people who are her fans who’ve turned up for Meg Mortimer, Meg Mortimer being our character who just owns a motel. And so, the producer is saying, well, you know, we can’t really film because Meg doesn’t know 10,000 people.

 

CLIP

Jack: Nolly, bit of a problem.

Nolly: Tell me, I’ll fix it. What’s wrong?

Jack: It’s the people outside. There are thousands of them. I mean, literally thousands. There’s up to 10,000 people standing outside.

Nolly: And the problem is?

Jack: They’re in shot.

Nolly: That’s a problem because?

Jack: They’ve come to see Nolly, but it’s Meg who’s getting married, not you, it’s your character.

Nolly: I still can’t see the problem.

Jack: Meg owns a motel in Birmingham. It has 16 chalets. 16. I have to put this show on air, and I can’t for the love of God work out why I would be showing 10,000 people at her wedding.

Nolly: Well then, the problem is you.

 

Helena Bonham Carter: And then Nolly was a real espouser of the people, you know, she was a working-class person, but she also felt such loyalty to all these people who watched it, to her fans. And she turns it into a sort of Joan of Arc – Henry V speech about we have to do well by the fans. It doesn’t matter if it just makes zero sense.

 

CLIP

Nolly: If 10,000 people have turned up to show their love, then I think that’s a wonderful thing. If they sit at home every day and have their tea, and watch Crossroads, and they see Meg dealing with her family, and her guests, and the staff in all 16 chalets, and they think so much of her that they want to leave their homes in the cold, and the wind, and the rain to stand there, to give a little cheer, that’s all, a faint little cheer on a miserable day. I mean, God knows they can barely afford the heating or the gas or the rent, and yet they still come to stand out there together. Then, what sort of person would cut them out of the picture? Tell me, what sort of person is that?

 

Jace Lacob: I was going to say Helena, it is this blistering fire and ice speech about the 10,000 people, which it does become her version of a Saint Crispin’s Day speech. It’s incredible!

Helena Bonham Carter: It was like she suddenly turns into this great leader of the people. He’s making such a reasonable point. And I loved it because there’s part of her that is really quite insane. Give me anybody with more than one color, no, definitely more than five colors, anyone who has contradictions, which we all are, and she definitely was full of contradiction and, very flawed, but ultimately amazing and extraordinary.

She was a pioneer, also, for women in the sense that prior to Crossroads, she presented telly, she was a women’s day presenter. She’d come and learned in America, in New York and studied and worked with American daytime TV shows, and then led her own. There wasn’t really anything that Noele Gordon couldn’t do.

Jace Lacob: I do want to drill down on that. As you say, she is a trailblazer. She is the first woman to appear on color television, the first woman to interview a sitting prime minister. She’s the first woman to do a lot of things, but she seems penalized for her womanhood, for being particular or exacting. Was she ultimately punished for being just that, an outspoken woman?

Helena Bonham Carter: Yeah, I think it’s that ultimately, she’s being punished for being outspoken and right and clever. And men were terrified of her. Well, the men in suits as she called them, the men who were nowhere near the set, were making decisions. And she would confront, and that typical thing of, because she was a woman, she would seem to be seen as difficult. But in a man’s body, it would have been just seen as the norm. She definitely belongs to that forgotten history, brushed under the carpet.

There’s a really wonderful speech in episode three, when she talks about the fact that she’s a single older woman and that she doesn’t feel really understood by society. This is in the eighties. And there were a lot of rumors that she was gay. She wasn’t gay. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being gay, but she said, I’m not gay, but she just felt there was an instinct by, definitely in the 80s, to sort of ‘other’ her. They couldn’t understand. How can you be single and not have…

I think they were frightened. There’s no relationship with a man. She wasn’t married. She didn’t have a child. Russell has this beautiful speech about the silent army of women with no name. And just because she wasn’t with a man, she must therefore be a lesbian. And she felt that prejudice was horrendous. She was actually, she had an affair, a long, long-term affair with a married man, an impresario, and that comes out in the story.

Jace Lacob: We will talk about Val Parnell and that scene in just a little bit. Nolly says at one point, “I am making the show better if I have to haul it out of the grave, line by line”, which she says about Crossroads. How do you then see Nolly’s edicts? Are they done from what I hope is a place of love, a sense of duty, an almost selfless nobility? Or do you see that coming from a different place?

Helena Bonham Carter: No, I think it was utter devotion to the program. I don’t think she had a naturally large ego. It wasn’t ego and it wasn’t a power thing. She was what she was. There is that funny thing of “no one sits in Noele Gordon’s chair”, but she had seniority because she earned it. And she’d been in the show right from the start. In fact, it had been created around her and she knew what it was about. It wasn’t because she needed to, you know, be more powerful. I think it was well earned power.

But I think the people who got rid of her did have a power thing. And they felt uncomfortable deferring to a woman of that age. And someone who wasn’t sexy, it’s that thing. It’s also ageism too, I think. I mean, she was swiftly replaced by Gabrielle Drake. who was about 30 years younger, again, red hair. And you go like, oh my God. It’s ridiculous. Why do they have to fancy everyone, you know, the employers? It’s absurd. Anyway, we have come some way, I think.

Jace Lacob: But we still have a ways to go. There is a beautiful ease to Noele’s dynamic with her co-star Tony Adams who I believe cooked her dinner every night in addition to driving her around and their flats did look into one another from across the street.

Helena Bonham Carter: I love that relationship.

Jace Lacob: What do you make of Nolly and Tony’s rapport, and how did you and Augustus Prew work to achieve that dynamic?

Helena Bonham Carter: Well, Augustus is a one off, you know, he really is an extraordinary person. He’s got amazing energy and he’s got amazing charisma. And he’s got that gift for intimacy. You know, some people you just immediately feel comfortable. There wasn’t any difficulty in having to create a history, because it was a long friendship. And I love the fact that you first see him as a chauffeur, and they had these games, you know, he would dress with a chauffeur’s hat, and drive her around, and uphold her sense of, she’d worked hard and got the Rolls Royce. And he really adored her.

I spoke to Tony, and he was such a nice man. He so loved her, so missed her. And he told one story which was, so there was one point when she was really down. I think she might have been possibly ill, or it might have been over the sacking, I can’t remember. And so, he cheered her up, said, come on, let’s go and drink some champagne and drive around. So, he drove around and then she said, let’s switch the radio on. And in the pouring rain, I can’t remember which song, because they love songs, musicals, but he danced in the rain. I wish I could remember the song. I just said, oh, I wish we could put that in, because it’s just a sense of fun. And also I love musicals and she loved singing.

There’s one episode in Crossroads, which is hilarious, where she just unashamedly starts singing as if it’s the Noele Gordon show. And she was of that era. She was a proper musical singer, musical actress. And she sings this song and then she starts and turns to the camera and sings directly to the camera, so she breaks the fourth wall, which I think is referenced in a way, in the piece, and the rest of the cast, I spoke to them, Susan Hanson was brilliant, and she said, I didn’t really know what to do. We just thought, oh my God, let’s just…

But she just had so much joy and felt like she’s going to entertain the troops. She’s going to entertain those people at home, and they’ve had an awful day and we’re just going to have fun. Anyway, it’s fun. It’s very funny.

Jace Lacob: What she had with Tony was a sort of mirroring of the platonic relationship that Gordon had with Larry Grayson, the diva and her gay best friend. But there’s a different sort of intimacy of tenderness between Noele and Larry, one that I think is really just beautifully depicted by you and Mark Gatiss here. How pivotal is the Larry Grayson sequence to the narrative? Do you see it as the emotional heart of the drama?

Helena Bonham Carter: Well, she’s on her uppers, she knows she’s sacked, she doesn’t know what she’s going to do. And she goes and visits her friend who’s of a similar age, and they feel like, well, they’re going to be dinosaurs soon. You know, they’re obsolete because of age, and it’s such a cruel business that you get to an age and then suddenly people don’t really want you. But he’s the one who suggests that she has another act. And it’s such a touching scene. Mark is such a great actor.

Jace Lacob: I love it. It is this opportunity to strip everything down, just as Larry removes his girdle. The Nolly that we see here as so sure of everything previously, is so vulnerable in this scene. She can take off her emotional girdle here. What was filming this scene like with Mark? And what sort of direction did Peter Hoar give you?

Helena Bonham Carter: Well, Peter was brilliant right from the start. Also, Peter’s brilliant at working with Russell and interpreting his script. He’d worked with him on It’s a Sin. Nicola Shindler, who produced it, had also worked with him. The team were immaculate. I will say it was one of the happiest and the most efficient filming experiences I’ve ever had. And, when you’re on most of the time, how something is run is so integral to your ability to pull it off. So, so grateful.

I mean, Mark’s just brilliant. And he was such a fan of Larry. He was really funny between the takes because he was always doing more Larry Grayson. And Larry really was exceptional too. Very loved, again. And they had this sort of, everyone thought they’d got engaged. It’s a story. The public thought that Larry and Noele were engaged. I mean, it could not have been more obvious that Larry was gay, but it was in a time when you weren’t allowed to be. So, they just pretend that they were each other’s beards, you know. They understood each other and they were allowed to be vulnerable. But they were two old pros, they’d been performing for years and realizing, oh, we’re on our way out. What do we do next? Whereas Tony is a wonderful friend, but he’s so much younger, so he couldn’t quite be in sync with her when it came to the age thing, whereas Larry was her contemporary.

Jace Lacob: Nolly becomes a piece of two halves, the public and the private. And throughout Nolly, those two spheres are at odds. We see Nolly, the grand dame of the set and the stage, and we see Nolly at home making a ham sandwich and turning on every single light in her flat. Which of these two aspects do you feel is the real Gordon? Is it the one secretly reading scripts in her kitchen or lying about taping episodes of Crossroads on her VCR?

Helena Bonham Carter: Well, she had a huge front and the sad thing about, I mean, the amazing thing about Nolly was that she was completely professional, and she was devoted to her work, which was grueling day in, day out. They had ridiculous schedules, but she had nothing else. There was nothing else apart from her relationship, which is revealed in episode three, but that was it.

So, the loneliness, I love those lights turning on. It feels like she returns home to an empty flat. And has to cook for one. And so, there’s a real schism between being adored by all the fans and actually coming home to nobody. Didn’t even have a pet. But luckily, she had Tony across the way. But that was it.

She had her mum. And her mum was crucial, and I think that’s where Russell also feels that the producers were even more unconscionably cruel to her because her mum lived above her and had been her constant companion, and in fact basically put her on the stage aged two. And she only died probably about a year before our drama starts, so she’s still in mourning. Or two years maybe, but I think that it was very, very recent. So, with that knowledge, they still deliver the body blow of the sacking and on top of it, don’t even tell her why.

Jace Lacob: Which is the cruelest part, I think. The sacking has dented her confidence, we’ll say, to put it mildly. She struggles with her ‘Sing out Louise’ entrance. She says, “This part is a monster. She’s a legend. She’s a major piece of work and I’m not good enough.” And she compares herself unfavorably to Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury. Does the loss of Crossroads for Nolly, her life’s purpose, her ambitions undone by betrayal, does it echo Rose’s own loss here?

Helena Bonham Carter: Yeah, I think she did. In a way, I loved the choice of Gypsy, it was real, because in some ways, I don’t think she’d ever looked quite at her own mother. Her mother was really Gypsy Rose Lee. Her mother did put her on the stage and put all this pressure on. And she was put to work as a very young child. So, however much she loved her mum, I did think, oh, there’s an interesting mirroring.

The other thing is, you know, if you do the same job year in year out, you get pretty lazy or, just the same muscles get exerted. So to do that and then Gypsy, which is on stage, is a huge leap. It would terrify anyone, frankly, whether you’ve just been sacked or not. She was having an identity crisis. I’m sure the end was totally because she didn’t recover from that loss.

 

MIDROLL

 

Jace Lacob: She takes this spotlight backstage, and she speaks her truth and recounts her romance with Val Parnell.

 

CLIP

Nolly: The point still stands, when you are a woman with no husband, no partner, no children, society doesn’t know who you are. There’s no place for us. This silent army of women with no name.

Patty: Actually, that is offensive.

Nolly: Thank you.

Patty: You’re right.

Nolly: Thank you.

Patty: Bastards!

Nolly: Exactly. But I did have someone. I gave him 20 years of my life. Val Parnell.

 

Jace Lacob: And she delivers this breathtakingly fierce speech about her sacking.

 

CLIP

Nolly: I was sacked because I was sackable. Those men just did what they always do. They singled me out, they bared their teeth, and they brought me down. And then, they raised a glass of champagne and moved on to the next. And yes, I will sing your song, downstage, if that is going to get us to the West End. I will sing your bloody song, downstage, right here, in front of 1,000 people.

 

Jace Lacob: That moment, it’s such a moment of catharsis, of beautiful catharsis. And it’s a bravura moment for Nolly, but also for you, Helena. And it’s impossible not to sit enraptured as the actors in Gypsy do, eating up this moment in every word. What did you make of the monologue when you first read it in the script?

Helena Bonham Carter: I thought, this is so beautiful. And then I also thought, oh, I’m terrified because I’m going to have to do it. But again, Peter was brilliant at helping me and breaking it down into bits. I learn lines months ahead, mostly due to, well, partly due to terror, but also, I really want to make it my own. And I feel like the longer it’s in my unconscious, and the many more nights that I’ve slept with lines and the material, and worked out the thought process, all the things that have added up. You’re always wanting to try and make those words inevitable, whatever the word is.

But then there was the thing of, okay, now we’ve got to, you see in film, it’s so irritating that you, or television, you never get to rehearse in a physical space. So, then it’s marrying that. So, me and Peter visited the theater way before we went to shoot it. And then I’m very particular about the chair, all sorts of things, things that you don’t want to be thrown, the clothes, again.

And what was really helpful was Russell, I mean, I love Russell and it meant that I could, he loves actors, not a given actually. Some writers and indeed directors don’t love necessarily or want to discuss the process. But he said in that last speech, the music, the duh, duh, duh, it’s in the rhythm of that speech. And I thought, oh my God, that’s great to know. And it’s so Sondheim to have the music. And in fact, the composer, it begins before, as she’s building up. And I said, okay, great. So, the inevitable bit of breaking out into the song begins at the beginning of that speech, even though there’s a jump cut in the film.

So that sort of thing was invaluable. I said, oh, thank you, Russell. I was always phoning him for tips and texting him. And he was brilliant at reassuring me, frankly, giving me compliments to just again, everybody’s confidence is on the floor most of the time no matter what. And it was a big, massive part and it was very demanding. And also, I was on all the time. So, look when you’re tired, a lot of the time I can get really, really self-critical. So, he was brilliant at just keeping the inner critic at not being too vociferous.

Jace Lacob: Nolly discovers why she was sacked in Bangkok, but she finally gets her confrontation with Jack Barton in a hotel in Birmingham.

 

CLIP

Nolly: I was given this piece of paper by a policeman in Bangkok. It’s far too long a story. I was sacked because I’m a bully, because I’m a prima donna, because I’m delusional. I make people go through hell. I’m a fly in the ointment. It appears I was sacked because I’m a difficult asset.

 

Jace Lacob: But there’s the question, would you have done that to a man? Is that ultimately the crux of Nolly?

Helena Bonham Carter: I think it is the crux of what Russell is talking about, and of this time, and possibly now. I hate the word difficult. It’s often like, oh, she’s being difficult, and you go, no, she isn’t. You wouldn’t say that of him, oh, he’s being difficult. It’s such a word that you tend to just put with a woman, don’t you? I’ve never really heard a man being difficult.

Jace Lacob: I’ve been called difficult. I’ve been called difficult.

Helena Bonham Carter: Have you been difficult? I think certainly, even if they’d sacked the man, they would have had to tell him. It would have been an old boys network chat, probably. They were all terrified of her. It’s a very good scene. She never had that scene in real life. She never got to know actually, and she never got to confront Jack Barton.

You know, Russell really loves championing the underdog and he did that with It’s a Sin, that whole generation that died of AIDS, and he does it for Nolly. He gives her that scene. She never did get that scene in real life. And the whole thing is a sendoff. When I got the script, I said, why are you doing this? He said, because this woman was amazing. And he was a big Crossroads fan and he loves soap opera, but he also felt she was really hard done by and treated badly and deserved a proper send off.

And the most touching thing was shooting the end scene in Venice. Well, it wasn’t actually in Venice, we were in Liverpool but pretending to be in Venice. There was a lot of very resourceful filmmaking in this. And they got the real Tony Adams and the real Susan Hanson to come and they were clapping. You wouldn’t probably recognize them because you probably wouldn’t recognize what they look like. But it was so touching that in the big clap off when Jack Barton finally, as she goes back to the show, and he gives her the final applause that she deserved right from the start, then there’s a cut away of the real actors who were in the original.

Jace Lacob: And they were sitting at that table. They’re sitting at that little table.

Helena Bonham Carter: Exactly. They were so chuffed to be there and give her the applause. And also luckily they approved of what I was doing and they felt, oh yeah, no, she’s coming in loud and clear, and I found it so moving.

Jace Lacob: Did you feel a bigger sense of responsibility to Gordon filming that scene, knowing that Tony and Susan were sitting feet from you, watching you as their late friend?

Helena Bonham Carter: Yeah. I had phoned them many times. They gave me so much. And I think by then they’d seen enough to know that I was okay. And they were so supportive, which was so nice. What was so nice was they were so pleased to talk about her again. It was like having their friend back in the room. I had the similar thing with Princess Margaret, who had a complicated reputation. When I spoke to the people who were close to her, her old friends, they again were so pleased to talk about their old friend and they really loved and admired her and she was so funny.

And it was a similar thing with Noele. A really strong woman, both of them were very strong women who did not bite, did not eat their words and they were unapologetically themselves, and didn’t demur, didn’t play low status women, but utterly themselves. And I loved that. I felt so privileged that I got to speak to people who were close to them and that they felt safe enough with me to talk about them. I think it was quite therapeutic in a way.

Jace Lacob: It must be.

Helena Bonham Carter: Yeah, and they both died too young.

Jace Lacob: Far too young.

Helena Bonham Carter: Particularly Noele.

Jace Lacob: 65 for Noele, yeah.

Helena Bonham Carter: Yeah, way too young. Yeah, unfair.

Jace Lacob: I love the scene that you and Augustus have, this incredible, beautiful moment together where Noele says of all the men in her life, it’s Tony that she loves. And you kiss Augustus’s hand so tenderly, so sweetly. How did you read that moment between them and what Noele Gordon acknowledges here?

Helena Bonham Carter: I think she just means it. I think often we think that our romantic relationships have to be the ones that are most important. And often it’s the friendship. And often they’re not sung. You know, they’re not given the right attention or the right recognition. And for her, Tony was absolutely paramount. And she really loved him, and he loved her, and knew each other. You know, they really witnessed each other, and witnessed and knew every flaw, every crook and cranny, but they were there for each other.

And what she does, and I thought this must be invented, when she goes off on the QE2, which is completely absurd, he did hire a boat to try and cheer her up. I love that imagination that he had for his friend. What is funny, and it is a really funny piece, is the farcical element of how these men in suits really take their revenge and put the boot in. They really didn’t like Noele, for whatever reasons, I think, feeling threatened.

And so they invent, they keep on working out how they’re going to get rid of her as a character. And she can’t but take it personally. And that’s part of the humor and it’s completely absurd. You know, they actually put her on the QE2, which is a ship and she had to go all the way to France and back.

Jace Lacob: By herself.

Helena Bonham Carter: By herself! I mean, talk about getting rid of somebody. Oh my God.

Jace Lacob: The final montage we get is a devastating sequence to watch. We see the highs and lows of a life lived, but it ends with a beatific Gordon at her most magnificent, the return of the queen haloed. What did you make of this juxtaposition here and what is captured in her gaze? Does she finally feel at peace in this moment?

Helena Bonham Carter: Yes, I think she feels she was apologized to, possibly, and she feels she’s had a great life, and she did have a great life. And I think she feels it’s okay. I think she’s without bitterness at the end. And that applause, that recognition, although a bit late in the day, came. So, you have somebody who’s reflecting back and going, it wasn’t half bad. Yeah, that’s what I think. What do you think?

Jace Lacob: I think it’s all of that. I think it’s the sum experience of her entire life captured in one look. And I think it bookends our beginning with her looking into the camera as the first woman on color TV.

Helena Bonham Carter: To appear on color television.

Jace Lacob: And I think she looks at us, and we see her, and she’s seen.

Helena Bonham Carter: Yeah, she’s seen. I think that’s absolutely key, thank you for that. She is seen and that’s what Russell wanted. It felt like she was just brushed under the carpet. She was the queen of the Midlands. She was like some soap opera, you know, person who was probably rather difficult. And now he tells her story and gives her the sendoff that she deserved. And I think that’s exactly it, she’s seen.

Jace Lacob: You didn’t attend drama school. Your acting career began because you won a poetry writing contest and parlayed the winnings from that into allegedly enlisting in Spotlight, I hear. What was the impetus behind your desire to become a professional actor?

Helena Bonham Carter: I think I just wanted to be somebody else, to be honest. I sort of wanted to escape reality and put on costume and be something that was more dramatic and more fun and escape me, I think. I did find an agent when I was very young. I was only 13 and it coincided with my dad falling really ill. He was in intensive care in fact when I got an agent, so there was a feeling that I think, not necessarily conscious, well no, sort of conscious that I had to be self-sufficient. And also, a feeling that I couldn’t control reality, but then I could just escape it by creating my own, so I think that was it.

Jace Lacob: You were thrust into the public eye with your breakout role as Lucy Honeychurch in one of my favorite films of all time, A Room with a View, opposite Daniel Day Lewis, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Julian Sands to name but a few of the film’s many luminaries. You watched, I believe the silent rushes of that film sat between your mother and grandmother watching yourself on screen. Do you still feel that same sense of…

Helena Bonham Carter: Depression.

Jace Lacob: Do you still feel that? I mean, watching yourself?

Helena Bonham Carter: I watched Nolly and I thought it was unbearable, the first time I watched it. And really, I just vortex, I just go down an absolute black hole. At least now I’ve got an awareness that this is what happens and it might not be directly related to the truth or an objective. There’s something pathological, which is probably why I went into acting in the first place to get away from me. And then I watch something, and I go, oh my God, I’m still stuck with me.

And also, when you’re watching something, it’s such an odd business because we’re in control in some ways, and then we’re so not in control because no one really asks you to edit. And there’s so many different choices that you could have made or didn’t make. There’s a myriad of things as you watch something that you’re in, that you go, oh no, I would have done that, that, that. And so very quickly, there stacks up a list of negatives. And then you get drowned and then you go like, oh forget it, I’m just going to switch it off. Then you watch it again, maybe a week later, once you’ve gone through the depression, and reassurance by other people who were not involved that maybe it’s worth revisiting.

I always have to watch something before I do my ADR, because then I feel like I’ve got some control, and I can change a choice now that I see the sweep of the story context again. Then you emerge from the depression and then you go, okay, this is what I’ve got, work with what you have. And you begin to see the story because in a way, it’s sort of an inverted narcissism because you’re so critical, but you fail to see everybody else’s work and you fail to see the story. And it’s very difficult to watch a story innocently when you have been so closely involved.

And my instinct always, whenever I watch anything that I’m involved with is, get a move on, come on, get a move on, get a move on. And that’s just because you know unconsciously, what’s going to happen. And I just feel so acutely embarrassed. I feel like, oh, come on, come on, come on, this is boring. So, I comfort myself going, you can never actually judge. But at least now I work with myself, whereas on A Room with a View, I remember that after the first, I mean that was just terrible, it was deep gloom, that Sunday. And it was impossible, and my mother and my grandmother also were chatting. It was mute, they didn’t have sound then with rushes, and I just found them so embarrassing. And they were French, and they were going, comme elle est jolie. I was going, shut up, it doesn’t matter what I look like. Oh, it was awful.

Jace Lacob: You were recently named the President of the London Library, a position previously held by Tennyson, Eliot, and Stoppard, to name a few. What does the role mean to you?

Helena Bonham Carter: I was so amazed to be asked. My father made me a member when I was 21. It was my 21st birthday. It’s such an amazing institution, the London Library. It’s this old Georgian building on St. James’s Square. And it’s like this sort of living museum. You’re allowed to go in, obviously, and touch all these books and take these books out and you can feel the ghosts and you can feel the energy and you can’t but be inspired. I love, and I’ve been lucky given my profession, to visit old places, you know, and I love the effect of a location or place on one’s inside on one’s imagination on how you feel. And it’s an amazing place.

Also, the other thing is no one talks, so you’ve got this sacredness of silence. And you can go up and down these stacks. They’re called the stacks, which are these corridors of books that all these great writers, George Eliot, it’s just living history. And I felt so honored to be asked to be the first woman. I said, I’m not a writer, they’re all writers, all the previous, they didn’t seem to mind. They said, you’re to do with story.

And I had a friend of mine who was an amazing woman who ran a circus. She was called Nell Gifford and she died way too prematurely, it’s now three years, I guess, it was her father, he was on the board, a trustee and said, would you consider it? And I thought, Oh, Nell would love it. And so it was in the name of Nell and in the name of my father. And I love being called president. I mean, for that alone, president Bonham Carter.

Jace Lacob: Amazing. Helena Bonham Carter, thank you so very much.

Helena Bonham Carter: Oh, my pleasure.

 

Next time, as we prepare for our new spring title Mr Bates vs The Post Office, we bring you up to speed on the ins and outs of the British postal system. 

 

CLIP

Jo: I’ve never been able to get to grips with the system. And when I try to get help…

Post Office Official: As you must know, your contract with us makes clear losses are your responsibility.

Jo: Like once, I was on the phone to the help line and it doubled, it just doubled the shortfall right before my very eyes.

Post Office Official: Mrs. Hamilton, this is public money. We need to talk about how you’re going to pay it back.

 

Mr Bates vs The Post Office writer Gwyneth Hughes joins us next week to discuss the remarkable real-life story of one of the most significant miscarriages of justice in British history. 

 

CREDITS