Hold the Botox! I'd rather grow old gracefully, says English eccentric Helena Bonham Carter

By Baz Bamigboye

Last updated at 12:24 PM on 21st January 2011

Hold the Botox: Helena Bonham Carter would rather grow old gracefully than have work done

Helena Bonham Carter has ruled out Botox or plastic surgery because she feels her face is her fortune.

‘I can still move all my face muscles,’ she told me. ‘Look!’ she said, giving me a demonstration. ‘There aren’t many who can still do that.

‘Age is underrated,’ she continued. ‘I think what’s ­happening is that directors and the studios want actresses who have natural looks, who haven’t had any work done.

‘I know some actresses who have had bits of work done and it’s so good you can’t tell.

‘The problem is that now the high-definition camera can tell, so it’s best to leave your face alone. Look at Judi Dench. She’s beautiful. Talk about her face being her fortune! She never stops working. That’s what I want for me.’

We started talking about Botox injections when we met at the annual tea party, hosted by the LA branch of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Bafta) at the Four Seasons Hotel, where British-born executive chef Ashley James had laid on a splendid spread.

I mentioned that one doctor was offering free Botox shots to actresses attending the Golden Globes. Helena’s eyes lit up and she said ‘Really? Where!’ before dissolving into fits of laughter.

Then she said: ‘You have two choices. You can have the work done and look weirder. Or have nothing done and look older.

‘I think the only way I’ll continue to get work is if I don’t get anything done.’

She added: ‘Most men are lucky. They tend to age well and still get work. If you’re a woman, it’s more difficult.

‘But there’s beauty in an older woman. The lines represent something. I couldn’t have played the Queen Mother if I hadn’t been able to move my face.’

Helena stars with Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush in The King’s Speech, which has been going gangbusters at the UK box office and just took a haul of 14 Bafta nominations.

The picture’s a major contender for the Oscars and it’s up against the Facebook film Social Network, True Grit, The Fighter and Black Swan.

At one party I went to (Helena was there, too) thrown by W Magazine and the Chateau Marmont, I bumped into Dani Janssen, whose Oscar night party is the stuff of Hollywood legend. To get in, you have to either have won an Oscar, or been nominated.

Oscar favourite: Helena could be in line for a nomination for her role as the Queen Mother in The King's Speech

Anyway, I see Dani every year and I always ask her what movie’s going to win best picture. Can’t remember a time she’s not been on the money.

So, Social Network or The King’s Speech? Without hesitation she opts for the latter, adding that Firth will also take home the best actor Oscar.

For now, the momentum is with Social Network, but once Helena starts giving Oscar voters her Queen Mum wave, who knows what will happen?

Sienna's flare will brighten West End

Sienna Miller has been enticed by Trevor Nunn to return to the West End, to play an actress caught up in a love triangle during World War II.

Sienna will star in Terence Rattigan’s Flare Path, described by none other than Winston Churchill as ‘a masterpiece of understatement’.

It’s about the men who fly for their country, and the women who wait for them.
Flare Path will be the opening production of a season of plays - plus a musical - that Nunn, who has enjoyed one of the greatest careers in the theatre, will present as artistic director at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket from March.

Back on stage: Sienna Miller is set to return to the West End in Flare Path, as a woman caught in a love triangle

It’s an important year for Rattigan, as 2011 marks the playwright’s centenary. And it’s a signature moment for Sienna, too: not just a ‘huge honour’ to get the chance to work with Nunn, but also an opportunity to do some work of quality.

Sienna is an accomplished thespian, but quite often her private life has overshadowed her talent.

When, during a conversation with the 29-year-old actress, I joked ‘Sienna Miller’s back!’, she responded: ‘I don’t feel I’ve been away.’

In fairness, she did do a play on Broadway last year; and she does do a lot of work as an ambassador for the International Medical Corp, which is largely unheralded.

However, she acknowledged that ‘it’s harder these days to find things that are really meaningful’.

‘It has definitely been my choice that I haven’t been working a lot recently,’ she said, adding that she was lucky she could afford to wait for the right part to come along.

Off-screen: Sienna's boyfriend Jude Law appears to have inspired her to take bold professional steps

She also admitted that there was a perception of her ‘out there’ that had nothing to do with her work, adding wryly: ‘I didn’t know actors were ­supposed to be perfect people.’

But her private life with the actor Jude Law seems to have anchored her, and they appear to be giving each other the confidence to take bolder professional steps.

After working on Flare Path, the actress hopes to make a film with the French-Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb, and she said there’s the possibility of a second play in the late autumn.

Nunn and his leading lady have known each other for several years. ‘She came to see me as a possible Ophelia,’ he said, referring to the landmark Hamlet he directed with Ben Whishaw at the Old Vic.

Nunn wrote to her telling her she was brilliant — but too old for what he had in mind. Later, he was impressed with her ­London stage debut as Celia in As You Like It, and he wanted to work with her last year on the stage version of Bird Song, but she was committed elsewhere.

Flare Path, first staged in 1942 with Alec Guinness, was written while Rattigan served as an air gunner and wireless operator for RAF Coastal Command.

He saw, first hand, the courage of his fellow airmen, who took off from aerodromes never knowing if they would return. It’s against that backdrop that Rattigan set his play.

A former actress, Patricia Graham (the part Sienna will play), is married to Teddy
Graham, a pilot - but she also has feelings for an old flame.

Rattigan described Patricia and Teddy as being the same age, but Patricia ‘seemed a little bit older’. ‘There’s a tremendous youthfulness about Patricia, yet a maturity at the same time.’

Sienna told me that the ­dialogue is of the period: ‘Stiff upper lip — and that stiff upper lip hides their true feelings.

‘Once we’re in the rehearsal room there’s no one like Trevor to tell a story like this, and to uncover the subtext,’ she said.

Producer Matthew Byam Shaw and Theatre Royal executives had been discussing the production with Nunn for some time, but once the director zeroed in on Sienna the play was fast-forwarded.

Rehearsals begin at the end of this month; the first preview is on March 4, with an official opening night on March 10.

Nunn will direct other productions during his Haymarket  season, including one of Shakespeare’s late plays; an early Stoppard; and Stephen Sondheim’s Follies in 12 months time.

There are other Rattigan plays planned for this year, too, including Cause Celebre with Anne-Marie Duff at the Old Vic.

Helen Mirren wore more than £1 million worth of Cartier gems to the Golden Globes, but rang the jewellery firm’s security before she went home because she didn’t want the responsibility of them being in her house overnight.

She did wear them, though, when her husband Taylor Hackford and I walked her through secret passageways at the Beverly Hilton so Helen could bow before Colin Firth, who won the best actor Globe for his dynamite portrait of George VI.

‘He played my dad beautifully,’ she joked. Helen, of course, played our present monarch in The Queen and her father was...

Marital Barney for Rosamund

Post-Education: Rosamund Pike has starred in a string of films following her star turn in An Education

Rosamund Pike's movie career has taken off to such an extent that film-makers are writing roles just for her.

It all began with her hilarious turn as Dominic Cooper’s dizzy girlfriend in An Education, ­followed by her flawless cameo in Made In Dagenham.

Now, she stars opposite Paul Giamatti in Barney’s Version, based on Mordecai Richler’s novel about a marvellously badly behaved, womanising TV producer. It opens here next Friday.

In Barney’s Version, she plays Giamatti’s dignified wife Miriam, a broadcaster who met Barney (Giamatti) two hours after he married his previous wife.

‘He met the love of his life at his own wedding,’ Rosamund said. ‘It’s a crazy beginning to a love affair. You’re two hours married and you meet the love of your life — who’s not the woman you’ve just said “I do” to.

‘On one level, you’re exhilarated by the impossibility of it all. On the other, you’re really wary of a man who’d do that,’ Rosamund said, as she explained Miriam’s thought processes.

Both Giamatti and Rosamund perform sublimely. I saw Barney’s Version at the Toronto International Film Festival and knew it was a small gem of a picture.

Giamatti just took the Golden Globe for best performance by an actor in a comedy or a musical.

Rosamund shines out of the screen in a way she hadn’t until An Education came along. ‘Maybe I’m just more relaxed, happy. I feel secure and I think I’m being used better,’ she said.

She doesn’t think that’s always been the case. ‘Some of those arch roles of mine, like Miranda Frost in the Bond film Die Another Day, were hard to play.’

Now Nick Hornby, who penned the script for An Education, is (as this page was first to reveal) writing a comedy role for her and they’re in regular email contact about the part. She’s also just finished shooting the comedy Johnny English Reborn.

Ghost with the most

Olivia Williams  was in Hollywood for the Los Angeles Film Critics Association supper, where she was given a prize for her performance as the prime minister’s wife in Roman Polanski’s The Ghost.

I asked the actress, who looked sensational in a figure-hugging white gown, if she would be attending the following evening’s Golden Globes.

‘I have to get back to London to do the school run on Monday,’ she said. Seeing me examining her dress, she added: ‘But not in this!’

Watch out for...

Sinead Cusack, who told me she will play Sean O’Casey’s great character Juno, in Juno And The Paycock at the National. I met her on the Golden Globes red carpet as she posed for photographers with husband Jeremy Irons. Howard Davies will direct the play, set in a Dublin tenement building. It will start in mid-summer, following Davies’s production of The Cherry Orchard with Zoe Wanamaker. O’Casey’s play is a heartbreaking tale, but it’s also full of biting humour.

Understated: Mark Ruffalo is at the top of his game in the Golden Globe winner The Kids Are All Right

Mark Ruffalo, who plays the randy sperm donor opposite Oscar hopefuls Annette Bening and Julianne Moore in Lisa Cholodenko’s movie The Kids Are All Right.

Ruffalo is in talks to star in another picture which explores sexual and social shenanigans: Thanks For Sharing, a filmwritten by Stuart Blumberg, who co-wrote The Kids Are All Right.

Blumberg also plans to direct the film, which is about three sex addicts in a recovery clinic.

I’ve been thinking a lot about actors likeRuffalo and Mark Wahlberg (so good in The Fighter) and their non-flashy performances which are so beautifully realised that people often don’t realise how brilliant the acting is.

It looks so easy, but both are working at the top of their game.

Sacha Baron Cohen, who was out in Hollywood finalising his deal on the movie The Dictator, a new comedy in which he’ll play the dual role of a goat herder and a deposed ­foreign despot who get lost in America.

Larry Charles, who made Borat and Bruno, will direct the picture for Paramount Pictures and Scott Rudin, the producer behind The Social Network and True Grit. The aim is to release The Dictator worldwide in May 2012.  I liked the way the film-makers described the movie as ‘the heroic story of a dictator who risked his life to ensure that  democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed’.

London bound? Scarlett Johansson has revealed she would love to do a play in the capital

Scarlett Johansson, who told me she wants to do a play in London.

It’s a plan I hold dear, but we have to come up with the right drama first. It’s not going to happen soon, but it will happen,’ the actress insisted, as she went off to get some fresh air during the Golden Globes show.

Last year she won a Tony Award for best supporting actress in Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge, which ran on Broadway.

The idea was obviously catching. When I spoke to Katie Holmes at a reception in the Chateau Marmont’s penthouse, she told me she, too, wanted to do a play in the West End.

She looked over at husband Tom Cruise and joked: ‘Can he do it with me?’

Well, Cruise didn’t say no, but I don’t think he’ll do any theatre work any time soon.

Viola Davis, so good opposite Meryl Streep in the film Doubt and a powerhouse with Denzel Washington in August Wilson’s stage play Fences, who will join Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks in Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close.

The film’s being directed in New York by Stephen Daldry and also stars John Goodman and Jeffrey Wright (you know him from the most recent 007 movies). The film is about how a nine-year-old boy copes with the loss of his father in the 9/11 tragedy.

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