In a new interview with Hero Complex Helena Bonham Carter discusses Bellatrix and the Harry Potter series.

“There’s nothing like it [Potter filming], it’s been a nice tribe,” Bonham Carter said. “I love going back year after year. It’s refreshing. A lot of times in this business, it’s so transitory — it’s just 10 weeks here or there on a movie and then it’s over – but to see the same people over all that time, a decade, makes you feel really safe and secure. It was fantastically well-organized, the [assistant directors] are simply unbelievable, the best. The communication has always been seamless. It’s been a way for me to have work I can count on; I knew I was going to be working but the [screen time for the] role was limited and that was perfect, anything more than part-time takes away such a chunk of time and space and focus. It has been perfect for me, and I will miss it.”

“Bellatrix has really good fun, and she’s been a bit of surprise to me, in fact,” Bohnam Carter said. “It wasn’t really there on the page. When I took it on, I found there wasn’t a huge amount to go by in the script, and I read the book and she wasn’t necessarily on the page there either, so I did ask [four-time “Potter” film director] David Yates if I could bring a bit of other things or are these the Bibles? And he said yes, certainly, and apparently J.K. Rowling was very pleased with it when she saw it, and the childish dimension and the fact that she’s totally savage, that was a bit of departure.”

There’s often nervous laughter when Bellatrix is on screen, and for the actress, that’s the sound of success.  ”I just felt she had to make an impression because there wasn’t much time in which to do so. And she had to be terrifying. She needed to be somebody you didn’t know what to feel towards. One moment she’s horribly revolting but then also weirdly sexy, maybe, or just disturbing to the mind when you watch her. There’s a lot of decaying, too, with the bad teeth. She’s been in prison for so long. The mad hair. She’s someone who has seen better times but still carries herself with the memory of what she was. She’s almost like someone who’s had too many surgeries and thinks they’re beautiful but in fact has gone the way wrong. There’s a lot of people like that now. For some reason, I can’t live with the joke that now you can either be old or you can be creepy. That’s the choice. Sad, isn’t it?”