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Mon 28 September 2026 7:00, UK
As much as no actor wants to appear in a schlocky dud of a film, it’s virtually impossible to ensure that every role you accept is as good as the last one, and every job you take risks being just as Razzie-worthy as it might be Oscar-winning.
If you’re constantly flitting between starring in Hollywood blockbusters and low-budget indie flicks, then you’re probably more frequently risking your reputation, given the different demands that these two different ends of the cinematic spectrum might present to you. Your presence in one is invariably going to be utilised to different effect, and transferring your skills between the two requires incredible concentration and dedication to the roles you take on.
In the case of Helena Bonham Carter, who has rightfully earned a solid reputation for many of her performances, she’s also not been totally immune to appearing in films that have been universally panned, and one in particular stands out to her as being one of the most unfairly treated projects she’s ever been involved in.
When she signed up for a supporting role in the 1994 adaptation, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, she wouldn’t have been aware in advance that the entire feature would be considered dead on arrival. What’s more, despite working alongside illustrious names such as Robert De Niro and actor-director Kenneth Branagh.
In addition, people already had a low amount of tolerance and patience for other gothic horror adaptations from the same era, such as Francis Ford Coppola’s interpretation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1992, meaning that people had already come to the conclusion before visiting cinemas that it would be a lacklustre affair. When reflecting on her time filming in 1998, she argued that while it didn’t perform well, she was firm that it was actually a good film, just unfairly criticised.
“I loved doing it,” she revealed. “I watched it on video recently, and I thought it was a really good movie. It was an extraordinary experience, the amount of sheer hatred that came our way when it came out.” Despite raking in $112 million at the box office, far surpassing the film’s initial budget of $45, Bonham Carter knew full well that the vast majority of cinema-goers and critics came away from seeing it with either a middling or negative opinion.
Evidently, it didn’t cloud her perception of the time she had making it. “I mean, it became almost a historic flop before it came out, certainly in England,” she noted. “But I loved doing it.” However, was it a result of the fact that she never particularly cared about it going into the project that she ended up having a more positive take on such a disaster?
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
“To be honest, which I said then, I didn’t want to really play the part,” she admitted, before also acknowledging that she found herself enjoying working with the rest of the crew. “In the end, I wanted to work with Ken as a director, and the whole thing was an adventure.”
It may well have been derided, but at least she can take it on the chin and essentially accept that some films are going to fail miserably. You can’t blame Bonham Carter for having had fun, especially given that she didn’t really care about Frankenstein in the first place, didn’t want to play her role, and did it anyway.
