Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
When I get a script, I always read the last page first.. if my character’s there, it’s a good sign..
Vin Diesel is the most amazing movie actor. He has a presence on screen DAME HELEN MIRROR ON WORKING ON THE FAST & FURIOUS FILMS
Dame Helen Mirren laughs with a twinkle in her eye as she reveals a secret. She knows she shouldn’t tell, but can’t quite contain herself, as she confides just how she selects the roles which have kept her at her peak after 50 years in the business.
She knows the scriptwriters might not like it, but reveals her “terrible secret” anyway, confessing: “When I read the script, I read the last page first to see if my character is on the last page.
“I don’t bother reading it from the beginning. Is my character on the last page? If it is, it’s a good sign.
“And then I go back and read the script from the beginning.”
But if her character is not on the last page, there has to have been a grand exit.
She says: “If it’s not on the last page, I go backwards through the script to see the last time it appears in the story.
“And if it appears in a fantastic scene, you know, an incredibly dramatic suicide or end of thing and everyone is crying and, you know, it’s a really important exit to the story then, yes, I’ll go back and read it from the beginning again.
“But if the character just sort of disapand you don’t really know why or how or where, there’s no point reading it from the start as it’s not a good role.”
It’s a cunning strategy that is working well for the 74-year-old star, who is still at the top of her game. In fact, she is more lauded than ever.
Dame Helen is one of very few British actors to win the triple crown, an Oscar, Emmy and Tony Award. Last month, she picked up a lifetime achievement award at the Berlin International Film Festival.
At the moment, though, Dame Helen is not focussed on her own career, but on how to help others in the pandemic. As a morale boost, she gave a beautiful rendition of a Shakespeare sonnet she dubbed “Sonnet for Isolation”.
In isolation herself near Lake Tahoe, on the border of California and Nevada in the US, Dame Helen recited the sonnet beginning “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” at her kitchen table and posted it on Instagram on Monday.
It’s typical of the actress who, despite the plaudits, is still, at her core, the down-to-earth daughter of working class parents who grew up in Essex.
Talking of one of her most recent roles, with Vin Diesel in Fast & Furious 9, which will not be released on May 9 as planned due to the pandemic, she insists she is no star. She says: “Vin is the most amazing movie actor. You know, he has a presence on the screen. A combination of his voice, his physique, his character, it’s a very powerful presence.
“And there is a sort of difference between an actor like me and an actor like Vin. Vin is a movie star – I’m not a movie star, I’m an actress.”
Most of us would disagree, of course. Dame Helen, who has been married to Taylor Hackford, 75, for 23 years, may have come to Hollywood fame later in life, honing her craft on the stage and on TV, but she has always had star quality.
In her mid-70s, Dame Helen, a longpears
time L’oreal ambassador, is perhaps more famous than ever.
Christened Helen Lydia Mironoff, she speaks openly of the struggles of her parents, mother Kathleen, and father Vasily Petrovich Mironoff, who came to the UK as a Russian immigrant.
Her grandfather was born within the Russian aristocracy, but came to Britain during the Revolution, becoming a cab driver to support the family.
Dame Helen’s father was also a cabbie, before becoming a civil servant.
She admitted last year that, for her, growing up “there was no nice comfy bank account waiting to help you through a difficult time”.
A great supporter of causes supporting the homeless, she says: “I was lucky because my father didn’t get sick and didn’t have to stop his job and we survived. It could have been very easy for us to slip into homelessness.”
The family never had a TV, and never went to the cinema, but the young Helen shone in acting at school, and at 18 won a place at The National Youth Theatre.
She later joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, becoming a noted theatre actress, making her name on the West End and Broadway.
From 1991 to 2006, she played detective Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect, a role which won her three BAFTAS and made her a household favourite.
In 2006, she played Elizabeth II in
The Queen, winning Best Actress Oscar. Since then, she has starred as a monarch in TV dramas Elizabeth I and Catherine The Great.
Even so, she admits to being a republican at heart. She says: “I come from a republican family. You know, we don’t believe in aristocracy and in royal families.
“But I have to say, in researching the Queen, I didn’t fall in love with her exactly, but I came to respect her very deeply. Her absolute adherence to the role, to the job, to her dignity.
“She’s been unbelievably consistent under very stressful circumstances.”
The film was written with Helen in mind. She says: “The producer Andy Harries, who I’d worked with on Prime Suspect, looked at me one day and realised I looked rather like the Queen.”
And there was one particular detail that came especially easy to her – working with the corgis.
It turns out that if Dame Helen was to choose a second career, it might be as a dog trainer. She and her husband have trained a fair few in their time
She says: “I love dogs. I absolutely love dogs. And, you know, I wouldn’t mind playing Barbara Woodhouse one day, actually. I was very, very good with the corgis. It wasn’t editing.”
I come from a republican family. We don’t believe in aristocracy and royal families
DAME HELEN MIRREN ON PLAYING THE TITLE ROLE IN THE QUEEN