Helena Bonham Carter out and about in Malibu

Helena Bonham Carter spends an afternoon with friends and kids in Malibu.

Helena Bonham Carter can be seen most recently in the Harry Potter movie, “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” where she plays Deatheater Bellatrix Lestrange .

Recommended Movie: Currently in post-production is “Alice in Wonderland” directed by none other than Helena Bonham Carter’s longtime parter and father of her children Tim Burton. In the movie Helena Bonham Carter plays “The Red Queen” - Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice) attempts to work his gothic magic over one of the best loved stories of all time… Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice In Wonderland’ and ‘Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There’, which first told the story of a young girl, who after following a rabbit down a hole, is transported to a strange world. Whilst the disney version of the tale relied on sweetness and light to delight the audience, Burton fans can be sure to look out for the same cartoon traits as earlier masterpiece ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’.

The traditional tale has been freshened with a blast of girl power, courtesy of writer Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the Beast). Alice, 17, attends a party at a Victorian estate only to find she is about to be proposed to in front of hundreds of snooty society types. Off she runs, following a white rabbit into a hole and ending up in Wonderland, a place she visited 10 years before yet doesn’t remember.

Among those who welcome her back is the Mad Hatter, a part tailor-made for Johnny Depp as he collaborates with Burton for the seventh time. “This character is off his rocker,” Zanuck says.

Aussie actress Mia Wasikowska, 19, best known for HBO’s In Treatment, has the coveted title role. “There is something real, honest and sincere about her,” Zanuck says. “She’s not a typical Hollywood starlet.”

There is the usual Burton-esque ghoulishness (Helena Bonham Carter’s Red Queen, whose favorite retort is “Off with their heads,” has a moat filled with bobbing noggins), but Zanuck assures most kids can handle it. “The book itself is pretty dark,” he notes. “This is for little people and people who read it when they were little 50 years ago.”courtesy of IMDb