“I find it’s almost like I have to do it, I felt it was almost my story to tell in some ways,” Bonham Carter tells TooFab of her role in ‘One Life’.
Growing up on the streets of London with a grandfather who helped save Jews during World War II, Helena Bonham Carter said the script for her new film, One Life, “spoke to her a lot.”
“He [her grandfather] was married to my Granny who was French Jewish so that had a lot of resonance,” she told TooFab. “So I thought this story was sort of in my DNA, I live in north London, I’m in refugee land there’s just all Jewish refugees here.”
The 57-year-old actress’ grandfather, Eduardo Propper de Callejón, was awarded the honorific Righteous Among the Nations by Israel, for helping save Jews during World War II. Her grandmother Hélène Fould-Springer, meanwhile, was French Jewish.
One Life is a 2023 biographical drama film directed by James Hawes.
It tells the story of Nicholas Winton, a stockbroker — played by Anthony Hopkins as an old man, Johnny Flynn in his youth — who saved hundreds of mostly Jewish children from the hands of Hitler and the Nazis in Czechoslovakia during the early start of World War II. Bonham Carter plays Winton’s mom, Babi, who assists in her son’s journey.
While some actors may feel scared to tell a story so close to home, Bonham Carter said it didn’t deter her.
“I find it’s almost like I have to do it, I felt it was almost my story to tell in some ways, I owe my life to it, to what my ancestors did and they did very similar things,” she explained.
She also found herself having deep sympathy for Babi, who, as a mother, had to deal with the juxtaposition of her son wanting to save lives, while putting his own in jeopardy.
“What she gave him as mom too — at the beginning she’s feeling a bit torn that she made a person who’s got such great values and such heart,” Bonham Carter said. “Also risking his own life so it’s a very difficult position as a mother.”
The actress, however, believes Babi felt the most “fulfilled” because she was doing a job that made her feel “worthwhile”.
“‘What are you going to do with your one wonderful life?’, Bonham Carter said referencing the quote to poet Mary Oliver. “One life has such different meanings, his [Winton’s] one life, boy did he save so many. There’s this Jewish thing of saying, ‘If you save one life, you save the world,’ which is so true, he had no idea how may people he had impacted.”
Playing someone like Babi was a bit aspirational for Bonham Carter, who believes she’s “too apologetic” to do the things Babi did in her lifetime.
“When you play someone you think, ‘Oh maybe a bit of their greatness is going to rub off on me,'” she shared. “I personally wouldn’t have the chutzpah or fluency or the eloquence to do what she did.”
Of the film’s message, she added, “I think on the whole, what’s so great about the movie and what people have really enjoyed, is they’re like, ‘Oh my God, we’re living in such crap times,’ and this film has given some sense of potency and agency and giving it back to the individual going like, ‘We can do something guys, [Winton] is an every day stock broker who just thought, ‘Right no, I’ll just work it out and do it.'”
One Life — which also stars Lena Olin, Jonathan Pryce and Romola Garai — is in theaters now.
