TRIPPIN’
On the road with Helen Mirren.
Blue Jays traffic stops for no woman, not even Dame Helen Mirren. The British actress (we’d say “legend,” but gushing feels gauche around a woman who won an Oscar for playing the Queen) is 20 minutes late for our chat at the InterContinental Toronto Centre Hotel. Given that it’s the height of the Toronto International Film Festival (when tardiness is inevitable, what with all the back and forth between red carpets, junkets and press conferences), Mirren’s apology—she blames the crowds outside heading into the baseball game down the road—comes as a welcome bit of politesse. It’s a little disappointing, however, to learn that the 72-year-old has not been ferried around during the festival in “The Leisure Seeker,” a.k.a. the retro RV that plays a starring role in the film she’s in town to premiere.
“That poor old girl,” laughs Mirren when asked about it. “She’s a bit like me: very creaky in the joints, the brakes have gone and her gears don’t work.” Although, she says, it might have been a bonus to be in a camper while stuck in that traffic: “You could go in the back and make a cup of tea!”
The Leisure Seeker is Italian director Paolo Verzì’s first full-length English-language film. It’s a warm-hearted, deeply felt story about a couple determined to hit the road one last time for a taste of the freedom that age, illness and their children seem determined to take from them. “Generally, the attitude toward older people in film is so condescending,” says Mirren when asked why the film appealed to her. “Not that people deserve respect simply for being older, but [there should be] a recognition that this is a human being of equal value. This movie is such a lovely, gentle, comedic, humane and respectful approach to a story about elderly people.”
She also stresses the universality of the film’s subject matter, which is broadly about how we deal with aging: “You could go out into the street right now, stop any person and they would have a very similar story—about going through this particular passage of life that we all have to go through, first with our grandparents, then our parents and then we experience it ourselves.”
Surprisingly, the film hasn’t convinced Mirren of the merits of a house-on-wheels escapade. “It put me off a bit!” she says, laughing. “The romantic idea of it is one thing, but the reality of pulling in, attaching the electricity and the water...it’s quite a challenge, really.” She is similarly unenthused with road-trip playlists. “I never really want music in the car, but my husband [director Taylor Hackford] is into it, although he tends to listen to the same song over and over again. For a long time, it was Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders— the same song for three hours. I’ve blocked [the exact] one out.”