Helena Bonham Carter is no stranger to period pieces, having appeared in movies like Howards End, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Sweeney Todd, The King’s Speech, Les Miserables and The Lone Ranger to name but a small few, so she was a perfect addition to the cast of Netflix’s latest in-house success story Enola Holmes.
The 54 year-old doesn’t get a great deal of screentime, but her character Eudoria is the driving force behind the entire plot, having a huge bearing on the growth of Millie Bobby Brown’s title heroine and the conspiracy she races to unravel. Of course, Eudoria and Enola finally reunited at the end of the movie, and with director Harry Bradbeer admitting that he’d love to make as many as five sequels, the smart money is on Bonham Carter returning for further adventures.
Presumably, you wouldn’t hire an actress of her standing and relegate them to the background unless there were much bigger plans in store, and with Enola Holmes breaking records around the world as it looks set to become one of Netflix’s biggest original films ever, multi-picture contracts might soon be in the offing.
In a recent interview, the regular Tim Burton collaborator revealed what initially drew her to the project, and it mirrors Eudoria’s own determination to see the Reform Bill passed by any means necessary.
“The unknown sister, I just loved the idea of it. It’s actually funny, because Sherlock himself is quite misogynistic, the original Sherlock. So it’s like a ‘f**k you’, but you can’t say ‘f**k you’ to Sherlock.”
Henry Cavill’s Sherlock will no doubt be involved in any potential Enola Holmes sequels given how popular his take on the legendary detective has proven to be among subscribers, but let’s just hope that the interactions between the onscreen mother and son are a lot more family friendly than Bonham Carter’s reasons for signing up in the first place.