Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials star Helena Bonham Carter: “I’ve always wanted to play Marple”

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Netflix is adapting Agatha Christie for the first time with a new three-part series called Seven Dials. The series is written by Chris Chibnall, known for his work on Doctor Who.

The series takes place in 1925 and features Mia McKenna-Bruce as Lady Eileen ‘Bundle’ Brent. When a playful prank at an extravagant house party turns deadly, Bundle takes on the role of an amateur detective to solve the mystery.

Martin Freeman appears as Superintendent Battle in the series, and Helena Bonham Carter plays the role of Bundle’s mother, Lady Caterham.

Helena Bonham Carter recently discussed the new series with TopMob magazine. She explained what attracted her to the project, shared her fondness for Agatha Christie and the iconic detective Miss Marple, and reminisced about family vacations inspired by the board game Cluedo.

Why did you want to take this role?

I enjoy the works of both Agatha Christie and Chris Chibnall, and this story is no exception. It’s clever, entertaining, and fast-paced. While it takes some liberties with the original book – with the Christie estate’s blessing – it successfully captures the classic atmosphere and includes some really clever surprises. It’s so good, it almost feels like Agatha Christie herself wrote it!

Who do you play?

Bundle’s mother, Lady Caterham, is a fascinating character. She’s deeply sad and has experienced a lot of loss, but she also has a great sense of humor. I especially love how she pretends to be forgetful and helpless – it often gets her out of tricky situations. She acts like she’s incapable of practical things and really doesn’t like people, even wanting a moat around her property to keep everyone away. Honestly, she’s most comfortable with her dog, who was truly one of the best animal actors I’ve ever worked with.

What do you love about Christie?

I’ve always dreamed of playing Miss Marple – she’s such a strong and compelling character. I remember being captivated by the film Death on the Nile when I was young; it was visually stunning and featured a lot of well-known actors, and it all felt very glamorous and foreign. Agatha Christie was incredibly productive – the best-selling novelist ever – and wrote a huge number of books that aren’t as famous as her most popular ones. I’m really intrigued by her – what drove someone to write so extensively about murder? She trained as a nurse during the war and gained a lot of knowledge about poisons, which she saw as a subtle, and perhaps uniquely female, method of killing when physical strength wasn’t an option.

After her divorce, she found love with a much younger archaeologist, and their travels together deeply influenced her later novels, many of which were set in Egypt. While he physically excavated sites, she explored themes and characters in her own way. Interestingly, her writing often evokes sympathy for the people who commit violence, portraying them as driven by their own suffering.

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Do you have a favourite parlour game?

On family vacations, we play a large-scale version of Cluedo. Everyone draws a slip of paper, and one person is secretly the murderer. They’re given a weapon and a location – like the swimming pool and a flipper – and ‘eliminate’ people by giving them the object in that location. It can last for days and is incredibly fun! It creates a lot of playful suspicion, and the kids absolutely love it.

Would you be a good sleuth in real life, or would you be better at getting away with murder?

I see acting and investigation as two sides of the same coin – they really influence each other. I enjoy the process of figuring people out, analyzing their behavior, and essentially understanding what makes them tick. That’s exactly what I aim to do when I play a character.

Authors

Emma Cox

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2026-01-07 12:06