Helena Bonham Carter on bringing the Fairy Godmother to life

We can’t wait for Cinderella to hit the big screens this month, especially with Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange) starring as the Fairy Godmother. The film, as I’m sure you all know, has been directed by Sir Kenneth Branagh (Professor Gilderoy Lockhart), who recently spoke about bringing the film to life and shared some behind-the-scenes photos.

In a new interview, Bonham Carter has talked about playing the Fairy Godmother and how she went about reinventing the role.

She spoke about being offered the role and how she felt about taking it, saying that

it was really flattering and nice to [be] asked to play the role, but having said that, it was a quite a responsibility, and I was apprehensive about it. My first reaction was, ‘What great fun! This can’t be a losing situation,’ but on close[r] inspection, I got somewhat freaked out. The Fairy Godmother is iconic as an idea — there’s no real image of her apart from the character in the animated version — there isn’t really an obvious image, and I didn’t want to replicate what’s in the cartoon.

As well as playing the iconic role of Fairy Godmother, Bonham Carter also narrates the film and will be singing on the soundtrack, as revealed last week. Helena further spoke about how she reconsidered the actions and choices of the character:

I thought, ‘Why a pumpkin?’ because it’s not immediately obvious that you would choose a pumpkin as your source material to turn into a carriage. And ‘Why glass?’ because glass isn’t immediately obvious to make a slipper with. Also, I wondered why the magic was running out at midnight.

All of these choices she made sort of led me to believe that she was this accidental magician, or her magic wasn’t quite up to scratch.

On the theme of kindness, which runs through the film, Bonham Carter said,

I think they’re terribly important words, particularly in this day and age with social media. People think there’s an anonymity and a lack of responsibility whenever they write something because they’re not necessarily held to it. So many people are suffering because of bitchy comments about not being liked or whatever.

You can read the full interview here, as well as Sir Kenneth Branagh’s thoughts on Bonham Carter playing the role of Fairy Godmother.

Cinderella is released in the US today and in the UK on March 27.

Are you looking forward to seeing the film and Bomham Carter’s portrayal of the Fairy Godmother? Let us know in the comments!