Helena Bonham Carter uses psychic to contact Princess Margaret for acting tips from beyond the grave
Actress Helena Bonham Carter has revealed that she’s reached out to Princess Margaret via a psychic to ask for her permission to play her in Netflix’s show The Crown.
Princess Margaret passed away at the age of 71 back in 2002, so Bonham Carter thought that it would only be right to reach out and get permission before she went forth playing the lady herself.
“She said, apparently, she was glad it was me,” Bonham Carter, 53, revealed at a sold-out session at the Cheltenham Literary Festival on October 5.
“When you play someone real, you really want their blessing because you do have a responsibility.
“I asked her, ‘Are you OK with me playing you?’ And she said, ‘You’re better than the other actress that they were thinking of.’
“That made me think maybe she is here because it’s a really classic Margaret thing to say – she is really good at complimenting you and putting you down at the same time.”
Reaching out to someone from beyond the grave is nothing new for Bonham Carter as she always talks to a psychic when playing a real person who has passed away.
The Queen’s younger sister also included some rules for Bonham Carter to follow.
She said, “You’re going to have to brush up and be more groomed and neater.”
Bonham Carter has been excited to play the role for a while, as Princess Margaret is known in a “one dimensional” way by the public.
“Everyone has such a particular idea of Margaret. It’s very daunting and I don’t really look like her,” she told The Telegraph in December 2018.
“But like the Queen, no one really knows what they’re like privately, so you can make your own choices.”
She also confirmed that she researched for the role by talking to people who knew her closely, including relatives and three former ladies-in-waiting.
“They really loved her, and when you go to the inner circle of people … they were very happy to talk about her because they miss her,” she said.
“I felt very lucky to suddenly be the receptacle of all these stories. I think, for a lot of the friends, they are so tired with her being portrayed in a one-dimensional, very bitchy understanding of her.”