Helena Bonham Carter On Why She Had To Do One Life Report by Mccallumj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 I got involved about 100 years ago, frankly.
00:04 I was involved, I think probably one of the first people.
00:07 Cinder Coxon wrote it originally.
00:08 She approached me about 10 years, no, about five years ago.
00:11 There's another director, James doesn't know that.
00:16 And James came around and when he came around,
00:18 he said like, this was about, I guess, two years ago.
00:21 And to be honest, I was slightly ambivalent
00:26 because I thought this part is highly cuttable.
00:29 She's a mum part.
00:30 It's not a huge amount there.
00:33 But there was so much that intuitively
00:37 and in my gut and in my, I had to do it
00:40 because a lot of it, apart from just admiring Winton
00:45 as a man and that story and one life,
00:50 my family, my grandparents did very similar things,
00:54 not quite on the, well, did extraordinary things
00:57 as far as giving visas to Jewish people fleeing the Nazis.
01:02 So it was part of my DNA.
01:04 Frankly, also my great granny was Austrian Jewish.
01:08 So I basically played her.
01:10 So I had to do it.
01:12 And I was Anthony Hopkins' mum and Donny Flynn's mum.
01:16 So.
01:16 - Tell us a little bit more about your character then.
01:20 - Well, I bet, Babby Winton,
01:22 she was a pretty formidable woman, highly educated.
01:28 Unusual for her time.
01:30 Very cultured.
01:31 She'd come over from, she was a refugee herself.
01:33 She came to Germany, Nuremberg,
01:35 probably in about early 1900s.
01:37 She'd done the First World War as a German.
01:39 They were called Wertheim until I think '37,
01:43 they changed their name to Winton
01:44 'cause they could feel another war coming on
01:46 and then they thought they can't do the same,
01:49 be in England with a German name.
01:51 And she was extraordinary.
01:56 I think in all honesty, she was somewhat frustrated.
01:58 She could have had an amazing job,
02:00 but it wasn't the time, she was a housewife.
02:02 So what she did with her son,
02:05 and that was a very exceptional
02:07 and I think quite unusual relationship,
02:08 a mother and son relationship that is so dynamic.
02:13 What they did, I think fulfilled her.
02:18 It was kind of what she, she was dying to be,
02:21 she had all this resource.
02:24 She was clever and efficient and organised
02:26 and she was the perfect woman for the job
02:28 and her son knew it.
02:29 - And just finally then,
02:31 what do you hope audiences will take from this film?
02:34 - I hope, I hope that they'll get the hope
02:40 and then they'll feel empowered
02:42 because that's the main message
02:45 that this one man can affect
02:46 and every one person can make a difference.
02:50 - I adore you, you're amazing.
02:53 Thank you so much.
02:54 - Thank you.
02:54 - I could listen to you talk all day, honestly.
02:57 Lovely to meet you.
02:57 Thank you very much.
02:58 See you later, bye-bye.