Bonham Carter Wins Award, Burton Discusses "Alice"

The 2009 Jameson Empire Awards show was hosted this past Sunday in London's Grosvenor House. Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter attended.

Their film Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was nominated for five awards: Best Horror, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Soundtrack. The musical-thriller didn't take most of its potential awards home (including Johnny Depp's nomination for Best Actor), except for Helena Bonham Carter, who was honored for her portrayal as Mrs. Lovett.


Here is Bonham Carter's acceptance speech (watch the video of her speech in this link):

"Thanks so much. This is a real compliment, I'm very chuffed. I did work actually incredibly hard for that role, but I loved every bit of it, and it was so many dreams come true. Because I always wanted to be in a musical, to sing, to be in something written by Steven Sondheim - he's a genius - and I always wanted a baby girl. I actually got all that, thanks to Tim Burton. And I know he always wanted to be Best Actress, so this is as much his as mine. Thank you!"



At the show, the actress mentioned how she would love to do more musicals in the future: "I'd love to do it but no-one's asked, I would be really up for it though."

She also talked about the singing abilities of her co-star, Johnny Depp, versus her own skills: "To be absolutely honest, people are born to sing, I wasn't born to sing but I could just do it and I only did it after about six months of training. If I'd known I was going to play that part I should have started training years ago, it's a muscle that needs to be exercised."

She added: "I would love to do more, given the chance, and I loved every second of doing it."

And she continued to say how thankful she has been to be a part of Tim Burton's world. "I feel really lucky to still feature in Tim's imagination. I know I've borne his illegitimate children and we're very happily together but it's really fantastic that I still seem to occur in his imagination," she said.

Helena Bonham Carter will be playing the role of the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland.

Michael Sheen and Helena Bonham Carter

While on the subject, Burton talked a bit about Alice in Wonderland:

"Way down the rabbit hole" was Burton's status report. "There's a long way to go."

Empire asked Burton how much CGI would be involved in the film: "I'm not quite sure yet - doing a big budget movie is an organic process and gives the opportunity to experiment. It’s something that was presented to me and I’d never seen really a movie version of [the story] that I like, so I thought I’d just give it a shot."



The director also gave his feelings about working with 3D: "I like the 3-D aspect of it, I think it fits the material very well, and it doesn’t give me a headache like it used to."

"I think it’s good for anything. There are other uses than having spears stuck into your face - I think there are more visceral, emotional uses, especially if you use lots of textures."


Michael Sheen, who will be in Alice in Wonderland, also attended the awards show. The British actor presented Helena Bonham Carter her award.



You can see more photos from the celebration in this link:

Michael Sheen with Gerard Butler


Tim Burton with fellow director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum, United 93)



Photo credits: Gareth Gay, Jeff Spicer / Alpha