The Crush: Helena Bonham Carter

We admire consistency here at Crush HQ. Not for us the image makeovers or endless ‘new looks’ of some Hollywood stars, the A-listers we love most say, ‘This is me,’ and stick to it.

Step forward Helena Bonham Carter, an actress who has straddled the spectrum from mildly eccentric to batshit bonkers ever since she morphed from a Merchant Ivory English rose to a Miss Havisham-in-waiting. The 47-year-old has made ‘artfully dishevelled’ a look we aspire to: her hair is always just unbrushed enough, her make-up just slapdash enough, her black lacy ensembles just Gothic enough. In the wrong hands such a get-up would terrify; instead it sends a chill down our spine for all the right reasons.

HBC recently captivated us as Margot in Turks & Caicos, David Hare’s BBC Two drama, and is filming Suffragette here in London with Meryl Streep and Carey Mulligan. We’d be jealous of Tim Burton were it not that he fell in love with Helena on the set of Planet of the Apes and we have every respect for a man who sees beauty in a woman dressed as a monkey.