Actress Helena Bonham Carter was born on May 26, 1966, in London, England. Born into an upper-class British family, she attended Westminster School. She began appearing in commercials and plays while still a student, and made her acting debut in a television film in 1983. She gained attention for her role in 1985's A Room with a View, and won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress for her role in the 1997 romantic comedy The Wings of the Dove, for which she was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. In the 2000s, she played a series of distinctive roles, including the witch Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter series (appearing in four films from 2007 to 2011), Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), and the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland (2010).

Furthermore, in "The King's Speech" (2010), which depicts the growth of King George VI, who suffered from a stutter, through his encounters with a speech therapist, she played Queen Elizabeth, for which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress and was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2012, she was awarded the CBE, the third highest rank of the Order of the British Empire.

In her private life, although she is not officially married, she lives in London with film director Tim Burton and has two children.