Helena Bonham Carter

Why do you put your self esteem in the hands of complete strangers?

Sometimes I get it right and I sometimes I get it wrong. But fashion is all about having fun. I think fashion has been hijacked by the fashion industry creating rules on what one should wear and I feel like breaking the mold and seeing that the world won’t crumble.

I just went and got an agent because I thought I can create my own world - you can't right your own life, but you can escape to a world where you can have control.

Sometimes I go, “What am I doing with my life?” But then I get letters from young women, or people come up to me, and they say, “You’ve made such a difference to my confidence.” And that is a good thing. I should read more fan mail though. I’m crap at responding.

My life had been very work-orientated, and all in close-up. Once I had the family, it went into sudden widescreen.

Very early on, you figure out that you put your self-esteem in the hands of strangers. There's a different commodity. There's the Helena Bonham Carter that everyone thinks they know, who really has nothing to do with me. But you just have to let that go.

Wear what you feel comfortable with. People say nasty things about what I wear in the street. I'm always in worst dressed lists, but you just have to dress for yourself and ­nobody else.

Who wants to be normal when you can be unique?

I just thought I‘d never look good in what everybody else wore. So there’s no point trying. You just have to do what suits you, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t look like everybody else. Be you. That’s our gift and we’ve got to celebrate that, but it does take ages. I was wracked with self-doubt for years. I get spasms of it even now – I’m not indelibly self-confident.

Very early on, you figure out that you put your self esteem in the hands of strangers. There's a different commodity. There's the Helena Bonham Carter that everyone thinks they know, who really has nothing to do with me. But you just have to let that go.

I liked pretending to be other people: I could reinvent myself, reinvent my own reality.

It took me ages to grow into being a woman, into being happy with it.