New candids

La familia Burton de paseo por Londres

La familia tan hermosa

TIM BURTON Y HELENA BONHAM CARTER, UNA FAMILIA DE ‘MIEDO’ EN LONDRES

Tim Burton y Helena Bonham Carter forman junto a sus dos hijos una de las familias más peculiares y excéntricas del cine. “Somos los frikis del barrio”, ha señalado en más de una ocasión el cineasta de Sweeny Todd , que pese a saberse diferente no se resigna a ser el centro de todas las miradas en el vecindario de Hampstead, donde actualmente residen. “Me puedo vestir como un payaso y reírme con todo el mundo, pero aún así dirán que tengo una personalidad oscura”.

La pareja fue fotografiada mientras paseaba en una mañana soleada por los alrededores de su barrio junto a sus dos hijos, Billy-Ray e Indiana Rose. La pequeña, de tres meses, lucía un peculiar flequillo en el centro de la frente e iba en brazos de su madre, mientras que Billy, de cuatro años, llevaba un atuendo muy similar al de su padre -chaqueta cruzada y pantalón. La familia Burton vive en dos casas unidas por un pasillo por el cual se comunican. “Su lado es un caos. El mío es hermoso y ordenado. El cree que su sector es más James Bond, pero…”, declara la Bonham Carter. Lo curioso es que en el área del director está la habitación del pequeño Billy-Ray, mientras que Indiana Rose permanece junto a su madre. Eso sí, en la vivienda femenina, están la cocina y la chimenea que los reúnen en las noches de invierno.

Pese a este y otro tipo de excentricidades, tanto Tim como Helena se complementan a la perfección y juntos tienen una creatividad que va más allá de los parámetros normales en el mundo del espectáculo. Él es un genio y ella desciende de familia de sangre azul, de Lord Oxford, Primer Ministro del Reino Unido por el Partido Liberal. Ambos comparten un look desaliñado, -Tim siempre con vestimenta oscura y Helena despeinada y con esa piel de porcelana- y encuentran la belleza en todo lo que puede asemejarse a lo esperpéntico y lo terrorífico. “Siempre me han gustado los personajes extraños”, asegura.

La familia paseando por Londres

Nuevas fotos de Helena

Los extraños amores de Bonham-Carter

Para cuando esta entrevista sea letra impresa, Helena Bonham-Carter, de 41 años, habrá dado a luz a su segundo retoño; ambos fruto de su relación con el excéntrico, iconoclasta y visionario Tim Burton. Un retrato de familia nuclear que sobre el papel respondería bien a esa imagen algo conservadora y encorsetada que emanaba la actriz británica al comienzo de su carrera, cuando era la reina del costumbrismo de época de Forster-Ivory. Pero los tiempos de Una habitación con vistas y Howards End quedan lejos, y si los Burton como grupo evocan una imagen conocida, es más cercana a la Familia Monster o a los Adams que a la Inglaterra victoriana. Además, comentarios como los que suelta la actriz a cada momento no hacen más que alejar a esta familia de la norma. A su primer hijo le comparó con un pollo congelado nada más nacer, mientras que Tim Burton está convencido de que un parto es la situación más sangrienta y surrealista que uno puede presenciar. "Luego dicen de mis películas", remata el director de Eduardo Manostijeras, Mars Attacks y ahora Sweeney Todd, el musical de Stephen Sondheim centrado en la figura del barbero con el rasurado más apurado de Fleet Street, que ha logrado tres candidaturas a los Oscar.

Bonham-Carter es un pozo de energía bajo esa apariencia "gótica, estrambótica o simplemente estrafalaria" "Yo soy la peor para definirme. ¿Rebelde? Sí. ¿Excéntrica? Posiblemente. Pero yo me veo como alguien normal. Y Tim también lo cree. Lo mismo que yo pienso de él. Pero esto de vivir en el mundo de las descripciones?". Lleva mucho tiempo en la industria, escuchando cómo intentan encasillarla: la "reina del corsé" cuando comenzó en 1985 con Lady Jane y "la princesa de las tinieblas" desde que comenzó su relación con Burton, en octubre de 2001, después de conocerse durante el rodaje de la reimaginación de El planeta de los simios.

Ella no lo quiere reconocer, pero la imaginación de Bonham-Carter siempre ha estado más disparada de lo que sus primeros trabajos hacían parecer. Nacida en Londres, cuenta con un importante abolengo. Bisnieta del estadista Herbert Asquith, primer ministro británico durante la I Guerra Mundial, y nieta de Eduardo Propper de Callejón, diplomático español. También cuenta con una tía abuela, Liliane, filantrópica francesa casada con el barón de Rothschild. Pero a Helena todos estos cargos le pillan de pasada; es parte de la rama humilde de la familia, y con problemas: su madre tuvo una crisis nerviosa cuando la actriz tenía cinco años, y su padre sufrió una parálisis durante una operación rutinaria que le dejó de por vida en una silla de ruedas cuando ella sólo tenía 10 años.

La actriz sí tiene alguna queja sobre su compañero sentimental: que, con tal de que no les acusen de favoritismo, se distancia de la actriz más que de cualquier otro. "Nos arriesgamos mucho. Y luego tienes que aguantar eso de que "¡oh, has contratado a tu novia!". Les parece la elección más fácil, y de verdad que es todo lo contrario", explica. "Tim no es un hombre de muchas alabanzas, más bien parco en palabras, aunque, como es obvio, yo me entiendo con él. Bueno, reconozco que yo hablo mucho, que quizá me debería callar más a la hora del rodaje; pero no me habría venido mal un halago que otro", añade con mohín mimoso.

Burton no es el primer realizador con el que Bonham-Carter se relaciona de manera tan estrecha, ya que fue pareja de Kenneth Branagh. Y quiere romper el tópico que la asocia sólo con el cine de Burton. "Estoy disponible para el mejor postor. Para cualquiera. Pedro Almodóvar. Me encantaría trabajar con él. Quizá ahí me valga mi sangre española de algo. ¿Qué piensas?".

Helena Bonham Carter da a luz a una niña

La actriz británica Helena Bonham Carter ha dado a luz a una niña, su segunda hija con el director de cine Tim Burton. El bebé nació en Londres el pasado sábado, según aseguró el representante de la actriz a la revista People. La pareja ya tiene un hijo de cuatro años llamado Billy.

Bonham Carter, de 41 años, recibió la semana pasada una nominación a los Globos de Oro por su papel de macabra panadera en la adaptación musical de Burton Sweeney Tood, que se estrena el viernes en una edición limitada. Burton, de 49, también fue nominado.

La musa del tétrico realizador reveló en el último número de la revista Playboy que se quedó embarazada en medio de la producción, lo que ocasionó evidentes problemas de continuidad en las secuencias. "Empecé con los pechos gigantes", afirma la actriz. "Luego subo las escaleras y, de repente, tengo mandarinas de nuevo. De melones a mandarinas".

Helena Bonham Carter haunts online forum

Actress Helena Bonham Carter was so upset by her body's reaction to fertility drugs that she went online to find help.
Helena, 41, was trying for a child with boyfriend Tim Burton and started taking fertility drug Clomid, but the experience was a real downer.
Says Helena: "I had a terrible reaction to it. It turned out I was ovulating anyway. It stressed me out beyond belief. Hormonally, I was all over the shop and I got really low emotionally."
The actress started searching for information about the drug, and wound up joining an online forum.
She explains: "Lots of people don't have that reaction, but, on the Internet, I found a Clomid Club, with people who react to the stuff discussing it online."
Helena ended up conceiving naturally; she'll give birth in December.

Helena Bonham Carter: 'I would have tried anything, even IVF'

Pregnancy at 41 certainly agrees with Helena Bonham Carter. Seven months into carrying her second child, vibrant and beaming, she is licking big globules of Marmite – her latest craving – off her fingers.
She knows she is lucky. Not because of her successful acting career maintained over 25 years but because, after trying for two long years, she finally managed to conceive naturally.
Bonham Carter already has one son, Billy Ray, four, with her partner, the cult film director Tim Burton, best known for the Gothic Edward Scissorhands and two of the Batman films.
But she was desperate to have a second child and, while more women are becoming mothers over the age of 40 – there has been a 50 per cent increase in the past 10 years – she was well aware that only 7.8 per cent of women over the age of 42 are able to conceive with their own eggs.
So, like many women in her position, the actress, whose career has moved from playing Merchant Ivory heroines to the evil Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter movies, was open to considering all options.
And while Bonham Carter is renowned for her interest in alternative therapies, after trying and failing to get pregnant she decided to try conventional fertility medicine. The experience was not a happy one.
She took a fertility drug called Clomid, which stimulates egg production, after being told that she might not have been ovulating. The drug, which was also taken by Jools Oliver, wife of the chef Jamie Oliver, and is prescribed on the NHS, tells the brain that not enough oestrogen is being produced. But Bonham Carter is angry that she was not warned about potential side-effects.
"I had a terrible reaction to it. Many people think it is the only thing that's going to make them ovulate, but as it turned out I was ovulating anyway. It stressed me out beyond belief. Hormonally, I was all over the shop and I got really low emotionally. Lots of people don't have that reaction, but on the internet I found a Clomid Club, with people who react to the stuff discussing it online."
Reassured that she was not the only one to suffer this way, she stopped using it and concentrated on alternative therapies. "I tried acupuncture two years ago," she says. "I went to the Chinese acupuncturist in Belsize Park. Dr Deng, who practices there, is brilliant, and has helped so many local people. She kept saying that I was 'too weak, too weak', and gave me several types of tea to help build my strength up."
She also tried Tui Na (literally "push and grasp"), a form of Chinese massage that follows the same pattern as acupuncture and is an alternative for patients anxious about needles.
But she still wasn't pregnant and the next option was to try IVF. "I think we probably would have, yes," she says now. "Obviously, you don't know what you'd do unless you were actually in that situation. I think we might have gone for a round of IVF, but that would have been that. There was an argument for just having one child, because we thought if that's the way it's meant to be, so be it."
Ironically, however, she finally became pregnant naturally, just when she was under intense pressure at work. Immersed in a demanding role as Mrs Lovett in the Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd (with Johnny Depp in the title role and directed by Burton), Bonham Carter was putting in long days with little sleep, singing for hours on end.
"I was working so hard at the time," she recalls. "The first three months being pregnant while filming, I felt totally spaced out. You do need to multi-task with acting. You've got to remember your marks, your lines, singing, everything, and actually – you have no brain! Suddenly your own brain is growing another person's brain, so yours goes defunct. It wasn't ideal, but then I was so happy to be pregnant."
At that time, she also returned to Listening Therapy, where patients listen to Mozart and Gregorian chants to help them unwind. The theory is that by exposing the muscles of the middle ear to different frequencies, concentration improves and stress decreases.
The therapy, based on the work of the French neurologist Alfred Tomatis, has been used to help children with learning difficulties but it is also offered to pregnant women to help them relax before giving birth.
Years ago, Bonham Carter used the therapy to learn a language for an acting role, and revisited it when she was expecting Billy Ray.
During pregnancy, the technique is supposed to produce an alert, relaxed, and physically toned baby, and an easy delivery because it calms the mother. "That was absolutely the case for me with Billy," she says. "Billy was able to hold his head up at a very early stage, he was very laid-back, and although I love chubby babies, Billy has always been physically toned. I really think listening therapy might have helped a lot. The birth wasn't drama-free, but I felt very relaxed."
Despite their reputation for unconventionality – they live in separate houses connected by a hallway – both she and Burton attended antenatal classes before Billy was born. A fan of homoeopathy, she would have preferred a natural birth but "when it came to it, I just went for an epidural", she says. "Although arnica and camomile were really helpful afterwards, what I'd like to know is if there is anything for new fathers." In fact there is; homoeopaths recommend Arg Nit (silver nitrate) or aconite, which can be used for shock and panic, as well as vitamin-B complex and Rescue Remedy.
This time Bonham Carter is, she says, more relaxed about her pregnancy although she has had to give up some treats. "One of my favourite dishes is carpaccio and I love sushi but I've avoided them during this pregnancy," she says. "Obviously anything with raw eggs is forbidden, too. I don't drink caffeine as much as I would normally and try to restrict myself to one cup of coffee a day."
Instead she has become a glutton for peppermint tea and is also snacking on goji berries, hailed as the latest superfood – they are said to have more betacarotene than carrots, more vitamin C than oranges and more iron than steak. As we speak, she wolfs down slices of soda bread with a generous layer of butter and large dollops of Marmite (enriched with Guinness).
She will be giving birth in a hospital again – although she does not reveal which hospital nor will she give details of her birth plan. Is it safe to assume that the hospital will run the show? Or will Burton revert to type and suggest a Gothic birth? There are gales of unrestrained laughter. "Oh no! The hospital I hope…"

HELENA RECOMMENDS…
Listening Therapy
Listening therapy was developed by Alfred Tomatis, a French neurologist who now has 200 centres around the world. Patients are "taught" by listening to a series of music tapes over six months. This is said to re-educate the middle-ear muscles and aid concentration. It is used to help children with problems such as attention deficit disorder and autism, and is also offered to pregnant women to make them feel more relaxed. www.tuneyourears.com
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese treatment, based on the premise that illness is due to an imbalance of "vital energy" (qi) said to flow through the body along 12 "meridians". Needles are stuck into these meridians to restore the energy. With lower back pain some studies have shown acupuncture achieves better results than conventional treatment, and it is also used for fertility problems, stress, addiction and pain relief. The British Acupuncture Council regulates acupuncturists. www.acupuncture.org.uk
Traditional Chinese medicine
TCM is a range of medical practices developed in China over several thousand years. Treatment is usually a combination of herbal remedies — either taken in tablet form or as a "tea" of barks, roots and herbs — acupuncture and Tui Na massage. There has been concern about unregistered and poorly trained practitioners working in the UK; registered TCM doctors can be found through the Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine. www.atcm.co.uk

Su hijo nacería el 7 de diciembre

Helena Bonham Carter tendría a su hijo el próximo 7 de diciembre. Por supuesto, esto si no se adelanta.
Esto quiere decir que sería sagitariano, como yo :P