Helena Bonham Carter (born 26 May 1966) is an English actress. Bonham Carter made her film debut in the K. M. Peyton film, A Pattern of Roses, before appearing in her first leading role in Lady Jane. She is best known for her portrayals of Lucy Honeychurch in the film A Room with a View, Marla Singer in the film Fight Club, Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, her Oscar-nominated performance as Kate Croy in The Wings of the Dove, Dr. Serena Kogan in Terminator Salvation, her Golden Globe-nominated performance as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, as well as her other collaborations with Tim Burton, her domestic partner since 2001. Bonham Carter will play the villainous Red Queen, alongside notable actors such as Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, and Christopher Lee, in her partner Tim Burton's 2010 film, Alice in Wonderland, and Enid Blyton in the first ever adaptation of her life entitled Enid Blyton.

Bonham Carter was born in Golders Green, London. Her mother, Elena (née Propper de Callejón), is a psychotherapist. Her father, Raymond Bonham Carter, was a merchant banker and the alternate UK director representing the Bank of England at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. during the 1960s; he came from a famous British political family, being the son of English Liberal politician Maurice Bonham Carter and renowned politician, orator and member of the House Of Lords, Violet Bonham Carter, whose father was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, H. H. Asquith (1908–1916). Helena Bonham Carter's maternal grandfather, Eduardo Propper de Callejón, was of half Spanish and half Jewish ancestry, and served as a diplomat and former Minister-Counsellor at the Spanish Embassy in Washington, D.C. Bonham Carter's Jewish maternal grandmother, Hélène Fould-Springer, was the daughter of Baron Eugène Fould-Springer (a French-born banker), and Marie Cecile Von Springer (whose father was the industrialist Baron Gustav Springer). Hélène Fould-Springer's sister was the French philanthropist Liliane de Rothschild (1916–2003), the wife of Baron Élie de Rothschild, and her other sister, Therese Fould-Springer, was the mother of British writer David Pryce-Jones.

Bonham Carter has two brothers, Edward and Thomas, and is a distant cousin of fellow actor Crispin Bonham-Carter, who played Mr. Bingley in the 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, and Jane Bonham Carter. Bonham Carter is also distantly related to Admiral Stuart Bonham Carter, Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels (through marriage), and is the grand-niece of Anthony Asquith, legendary English director of such classics as Carrington VC and The Importance Of Being Earnest. Bonham Carter was educated at the South Hampstead High School, a girls' independent school in Hampstead, London and later at Westminster School, a co-educational independent school near the Palace of Westminster. Bonham Carter was denied admission to King's College, Cambridge University, not because of her grades or her test scores, but because school officials were afraid that she would leave mid-term to pursue her acting career. Because of Cambridge's rejection, Bonham Carter decided to concentrate fully on acting.