By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
October 19, 1999
“Fight Club” star Helena Bonham Carter graces the cover of Los Angeles‘ November issue, looking much more glamorous than she does in the dark film.
Often described as the quintessentially English actress, Bonham Carter says in the feature, “My mum, who is half-French and half-Spanish, gets outraged when I’m called (that). She says, `What about our side of the family?’ I owe my looks to my mum – which was 90 percent of getting my first job. And, some people would argue, 90 percent of my entire career. Journalists are always calling my features `Edwardian’ or `Victorian,’ whatever that means. I am small, and people were smaller in those times. . . . I look fragile, although I’m not – like a doll. But sometimes I wish I had less of a particular look, one that was more versatile.”
She shows off plenty of versatility in “Fight Club,” playing a desperate support-group junkie who gets involved with both Ed Norton and Brad Pitt.
“The whole film is about boys being boys, and Ed and Brad were always playing basketball,” Bonham Carter says. “When I suggested perhaps they could stop playing, because I don’t actually play basketball, they were, `Oh sorry, sorry.’ Ed talked a lot on set, and Brad took pictures. Brad just looked like a god in three dimensions but was nauseatingly normal.”
