Helena Bonham Carter used Bette Davis and Joan Crawford as inspiration for her Alice In Wonderland character the Red Queen.
The British actress starred alongside Johnny Depp and Anne Hathaway in Tim Burton's latest fantasy project as he re-told the popular tale.
And Carter admits that she watched movie starring the film greats as she pieced together her character.
Speaking to WENN she said: "He said to think of Elizabeth I and I said that I got that. He said it was Bette Davis in the film of Elizabeth I, The Privates Lives Of Elizabeth And Essex. So I watched that and then Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest.
"The voice kind of came from my daughter; I thought that the Red Queen had arrested development and that I was pitching her about two years old...
"She's like a toddler, she has a tantrum all the time. She's a toddler tyrant - toddlers are tyrants!
"They've got no sympathy for any other living creatures... the toddler thing was a big thing. My two year old daughter - she is quieter now - was retrospective inspiration.
"Two is kind of the time when you don't have any empathy for any other living creature. You slap things and it's all about me. That's OK in a toddler but not in a grown-up toddler."
The movie broke through the $1 billion barrier last week to become only the sixth movie to achieve this success.
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