Esteemed thespian Helena Bonham Carter — who portrays the late Elizabeth Taylor in the BBC’s Burton & Taylor — received her very first acting break in entertainment via a television commercial at just 16 years old.

The British star really broke through a role in A Room with a View, the 1985 film in which she portrayed Lady Jane Grey.

Determined to shake period-piece typecasting, Bonham Carter took on roles in 1999’s Fight Club and a number of Tim Burton films (he’s her domestic partner) such as Planet of the Apes, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

A SAG and BAFTA award winner, she has received Primetime Emmy nominations for her parts in 1998’s Merlin and Live from Baghdad in 2003. Her performances in The Wings of the Dove in 1998 and The King’s Speech in 2010 earned her Oscar noms.