Helena Bonham Carter, 29, the English actress who has come to personify the romantic heroine of Merchant-Ivory films, tried love American-style as Woody Allen's wife in his comedy Mighty Aphrodite. When it came to filming her love scenes with him, Carter told London's Evening Standard, "he didn't just keep his clothes on under the sheet. He kept his shoes on too. When I asked him why, he said it was in case there was a fire. Weird, I thought. . . . Even when he kissed me, he had a way of twisting around so I couldn't see his eyes. He was never intimate. I felt like a character from The Purple Rose of Cairo, and he had stepped down from the screen."

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