Helena Bonham Carter gave a few hints on her surprising Terminator: Salvation role to Sci-Fi Wire -- and surprise surprise, it's not a cuddly one! "I kind of play a baddie, definitely a baddie. I don't know how much I'm allowed to say, but I'm a very bad person." Now, I know there's readers out there who are more up on their Terminator mythology than I am (and it feels weird to even refer to it having a mythology), but were there bad humans? Turncoats who helped the machines? Evil scientists from Skynet? I feel certain this was discussed somewhere in a Kyle Reese monologue, but I may just be filling in gaps. Of course, Bonham Carter could be playing a Terminator (Summer Glau has proved you can be tiny and lethal), but I'm trying to keep all options open.
Given Bonham Carter's late in the game casting, it turns out she was replacing another actress -- Tilda Swinton, who I now want to pop up as a Terminator at some point. (I think I would instantly surrender.)
As for Bonham Carter's own interest, it turns out it was all due to her other half. "Tim [Burton] would have killed me if I hadn't done it, because he's such a Terminator fan. I've been in big movies before ... but I've never been in this kind of big popcorn action movie, a male one, an action one." And honestly, I like that she is in one. I continue to be amazed at the talent who has been attracted to this film, and like the rest of the world, I'm excited to see what becomes of it.
Terminator: Salvation opens May 22, 2009. We must try not to get overdosed on it ... and that's going to be really hard.
1. I don't remember Kyle ever mentioning humans that helped the machines, and I can't really even see any logic behind it. It's not like The Matrix, where they could be plugged back into the system to enjoy a normal life. Civilization has been obliterated completely. And seeing as how McG has said that the T-600 series terminators are the big ones of this film, and Kyle described the T-600 as easy to spot and with rubber skin, I doubt she is playing a Terminator. Maybe she undermines John Connor in some way. Like maybe John Connor hasn't quite established himself as the savior of mankind yet and there are competing factions of humans competing for the position of ultimate leader of the human resistance, and Helena's a saboteur or something. Or maybe she's just the voice of Skynet. I could see that too.
Posted at 3:48PM on Aug 6th 2008 by Cholm