Helena Bonham Carter thought Tim Burton was proposing when he offered her Alice role
Helena Bonham Carter thought her then-partner Tim Burton was about to propose when he offered her a role in his 2010 movie Alice in Wonderland.
The Crown actress played Iracebeth, the Red Queen, alongside Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, and Anne Hathaway in Burton's adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic novel.
Writing for Britain's Harper's Bazaar magazine, Bonham Carter recalled how she thought Burton was about to propose when he was just gearing up to ask her to play his Red Queen.
"Back in 2008, my ex Tim Burton asked me to have a meeting at his office," she recalled. "This was unusual, for at the time, I shared a home with him and our two young children down the other end of the road. What was so important that he couldn't ask me over Cheerios?
"Seated at his desk, he announced quite formally: 'I have something very important to ask you.' At this point I thought he was going to ask me to marry him. 'I wonder if you would consider playing the Red Queen in my film of Alice In Wonderland?' and before I could respond, he shoved a sketch toward me. 'Look, it's got to be you, because I've drawn you without intending to.' It was a sketch of an overly large-headed scowling queen. Frankly, this was better than a marriage proposal."
The Edward Scissorhands director cast Bonham Carter in many of his films, including Big Fish, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Dark Shadows.
Bonham Carter, who reprised her Red Queen role for 2016's Alice Through the Looking Glass, was in a relationship with Burton between 2001 and 2014 and they share two children.
