Mrs. Lovett is the female ‘protagonist’ of Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street and in the 2007 version of the film, which this fanlisting is based around she is played by the excellent Helena Bonham Carter.
Mrs. Lovett is a baker who runs a dissolute bakery in Fleet Street proudly advertising her pies as ‘the worst in London’. She was formerly married to Albert Lovett who has died by the time the film starts. After Lucy goes insane Mrs. Lovett takes control of the Barker residence. She seems to have been good friends with the Barkers or at least have known them fairly well prior to Benjamin’s wrongful conviction as she knows with astonishing detail what happened to Lucy and seems to remember Benjamin fairly well. When Benjamin returns as Sweeney she reveals her affection for him quite openly which he easily ignores.
Mrs. Lovett is an extremely interesting character; though clearly a romantic she has an extremely pragmatic mind to the point of turning her into a monster. Obviously twisted, at first glimpse it seems as though Sweeney is the true villain of the film eventually it becomes blatantly obvious that Mrs. Lovett is manipulating him to reach her own ends. The suggestion is hers as to what to do with the bodies!
Perhaps the more intriguing part of the above is that despite clearly using Sweeney she adores him to the point where she makes herself an easy target for him at the end of the film.
She’s impressively depraved, eerily casual, and of course, the one down in the basement skinning and literally butchering the bodies for eating. It takes one awesomely sick character to do that, what’s not to love?