Helena Bonham Carter says she was more scared of the fish than of stripping off when she agreed to pose naked with a large tuna.

The star of The King’s Speech, A Room With A View and Harry Potter revealed that she is fish-phobic — but still agreed to be the latest volunteer to bare all  to highlight the threat to ocean life from overfishing.

Bonham Carter, 48, was asked to get involved by her friend Greta Scacchi, who was photographed with a cod in the first of a series of images by different photographers, entitled Fishlove.

In the latest shoot, Bonham Carter worked with photographer John Swannell. She said: “I’m actually very phobic about fish so when Greta asked me to be photographed naked with a 27kg tuna I was more worried about touching it than getting my kit off. Having said that, I conquered my fears and by the end of the morning we’d truly bonded. He will be my Valentine.”

The actress, who last year split up with film director Tim Burton, spoke today before a meeting at the House of Commons, where 100 conservation charities were calling on ministers to declare more marine reserves in the British Overseas Territories.

The reserves would protect fish and also support threatened species including whales, turtles, seabirds, penguins and corals.

The actress said: “There is a new movement, spearheaded by the Blue Marine Foundation and others, encouraging the Government to invest in creating marine reserves — fish refuges really — where they are safe from the ravages of industrial-scale fishing and where they can regenerate.

“We all have a responsibility to try and return our world to the next generation in the state we inherited it in, not worse. It would be a sad thing if in our dotage we’d be describing a tuna fish to our grandchildren like we do a dodo today.”

About 85 per cent of global fish stocks are depleted or over-exploited.

The Government is considering plans to create three of the largest marine reserves in the world around the British overseas territories of Pitcairn in the Pacific, Ascension in the Atlantic, and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic.

Read the article in the London Evening Standard