Helena Bonham Carter Details Close Friendship with Anthony Hopkins: We 'Go Back a Long Way' (Exclusive)

"He came to see me in a play really early on and was a big supporter," Bonham Carter says of Hopkins

Helena Bonham Carter is sharing her fondness for Anthony Hopkins.

Speaking to PEOPLE recently about her and Hopkins' new movie One Life, Bonham Carter, 57, recounted working with the two-time Oscar winner as far back as the 1992 film Howard's End.

"He's an amazing man, and I go back a long way [with him]. Not that I've spent a huge amount of time with him, but we did way back," Bonham Carter says. "We were in Howard's End together when I was 25 and we shared the same agent. He came to see me in a play really early on and was a big supporter."

In One Life, Hopkins stars as Sir Nicholas Winton, a British man who assisted in humanitarian efforts to rescue hundreds of predominantly Jewish children from Nazi-occupied areas in what is now the Czech Republic.

The film cuts back and forth from Winton's life in the 1980s, in which Hopkins, 86, portrays Winton, and 1939, in which Johnny Flynn portrays the man at a younger age. Bonham Carter plays Babi Winton, Winton's mother, who also assisted in his efforts to secure passage and foster homes for children fleeing oppression in Prague.

Though Bonham Carter and Hopkins do not share any scenes in the movie due to its time jumps, the actress says they "had a real laugh" while spending time together on set.

"We did coincide, not on scene, but I went and did my makeup test and he was acting, so he called me Mommy," she tells PEOPLE. "And he emails and we text and I went to visit him and went to visit the set because I just — I'm such a fan."

Related: The Moving True Story Behind Anthony Hopkins' One Life: Hero Who Helped Save Hundreds of Children from the Nazis

"I think he's extraordinary to watch and he has a naturalism and the way he — it's almost a musicality. He's an amazing musician himself," she adds. "You've got to listen to his waltzes that he's composed, but it is just the way he conjures a sentence and his rhythm and speech and breathing and it's just so amazing to watch."

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One Life is based on It's Not Impossible... The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton, written by Winton's daughter, Barbara Winton. It depicts true humanitarian efforts taken by Winton — known to his family and friends as Nicky — in the months leading up to World War II's outbreak and the public recognition he received for those actions in 1988 on the British talk show That's Life.

Related: Helena Bonham Carter Recalls Being on One Life Set with Anthony Hopkins When Queen Elizabeth Died (Exclusive)

"Such a lack of ego, he's extraordinary," Bonham Carter says of the real-life man, who died in 2015 at age 106. She adds that the Winton family lives "just up the road" from her in England. "His care for other people is extraordinary, but he doesn't do it at all for any kind of self-advancement or glory or any kind of recognition," she tells PEOPLE. "He was very aware and he keeps on emphasizing that he was just part of a team."

One Life is in theaters now.

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