Note: this is a new series of History Switch articles profiling actors and their roles in historical film.

Helena Bonham Carter was born May 26, 1966 in Golders Green, London. Her father was an international banker from a famous British family and her mother a psychotherapist who still helps her daughter out today by providing analyses of her characters’ psychological motivations.

While she has no formal acting training, Bonham Carter has received or been nominated for a number of acting awards, including winning the Empire Award for her role as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, and for her role in Fight Club opposite Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.

Her waifish, tragic-heroine appearance led to her being typecast early in her career, but she overcame that to star in a variety of films from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Terminator.

Bonham Carter lives with director Tim Burton, who has cast her in a number of his films.

Enjoy Helena Bonham Carter as she travels through history by viewing her roles in these historical films:

1550s — Lady Jane — Lady Jane Grey. The story of Lady Jane Grey, cousin to Henry the VIII, who found herself Queen of England for 9 days in 1553, at the age of 16.

1600s — Hamlet — Ophelia . Based on Shakespeare’s story about the treacherous death of a king in medieval Denmark, and the uncovering of the truth behind his death by his son Hamlet. Bonham-Carter stars as Hamlet’s ill-fated lover. With Glenn Close as the Queen, Ian Holm as Claudius, and Mel Gibson as Hamlet.

1600s (original) — Twelfth Night – Olivia. When a shipwreck separates siblings Viola and Sebastian in a foreign land, each thinks the other is dead, and both embark on a series of romantic misadventures involving deception, cross-dressing, dashing counts, obese alcoholics and a perceptive fool who presides over the entire madcap affair.

1800s – Frankenstein (1994) — Elizabeth. Interesting take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, with Kenneth Branagh as Frankenstein, Helena Bonham Carter as his love, and Robert deNiro as the monster.

1800s — Sweeney Todd — Mrs. Lovett. Adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s award-winning musical thriller starring Johnny Depp starsas a man unjustly sent to prison who vows revenge, not only for that cruel punishment, but for the devastating consequences of what happened to his wife and daughter. Helena Bonham Carter is Mrs. Lovett, Sweeney’s amorous accomplice, who creates diabolical meat pies.

1900s — A Room with a View — Lucy Honeychurch. Based on E.M. Forster’s book by the same name, this film tells the story of the coming of age of Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham-Carter). Longing to burst free from the repression of British upper class manners and mores, she must wrestle with her inner romantic longings to choose between the passionate George (Julian Sands) and the priggish but socially suitable Cecil (Daniel Day-Lewis).

1900s — Howard’s End – Helen Schlegel. Margaret and Helen Schlegel (Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter) are sisters from a well-educated European family: intelligent, free-spirited, cultured, and highly emancipated by the standards of the time. A series of events brings them into a relationship with the Wilcox family: healthy, conservative, conventional, and very English, headed by the prosperous Henry (Anthony Hopkins) and his priggish son, Charles (James Wilby). Both families also come into contact with Leonard Bast (Samuel West) and his wife, a couple near the lowest tier of the rigid class system. Leonard’s desire for cultural and intellectual status attracts the attention of Helen, who must come to terms with her unexpected feelings toward him. At the same time, Margaret must reconcile her independent spirit with her desire for companionship and a comfortable place in Edwardian society; her moral strength is eventually able to resolve the tangle of opposites.