I was weird right from the start. It's just that you can't ever expect people to get you. And I do think that really did mess with my head, being well-known young, when you really don't know who you are.

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.

On corsets: I said, You have got to be kidding. I am an ape and yet I am still expected to squeeze myself into one of those damn things.

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 think smells, like sounds, can be so much immediately affecting.

I'm often criticised for what I wear. That's my main label in the press now: disastrous dresser!

I loved doing all those costume dramas. I didn't think, 'Ooh I've got to avoid being typecast' - you can't ever be dictated to by what other people think. I just do things because I fancy the parts and the directors.