Empress dressed to impress... it’s Dame Helen as Catherine the Great
AS acting royalty, she excels at playing the real thing – even, it now seems, when perched on a horse.
This is Dame Helen Mirren looking suitably majestic as Catherine the Great in a big-budget TV drama about the 18th century Russian empress.
Pictures released yesterday show the 73-year-old Oscar winner, who has previously played both Elizabeths and Queen Charlotte, in a series of intricate costumes. One sees her atop a white horse in a teal military uniform and silk gloves with her grey hair tucked into a tricorn hat.
Catherine had a different riding habit to wear when appearing before each regiment in the Imperial Russian Army.
Maja Meschede, costume designer on the Sky/HBO series, said Dame Helen’s outfit ‘combines features of a uniform with Russian national costume and elements of the French fashion that was widespread in Russia at the time’.
A second image shows Dame Helen in male costume for scenes set during a transvestite ball. The empress is said to have ‘delighted especially’ in these events and boasted that she flirted with Princess Dolgorukova while dressed in an officer’s uniform and a mask.
Another picture shows the actress in a blue ball gown inspired by a dress Catherine wore in August 1772 on the anniversary of her coronation.
The ‘sexually charged’ four-part drama was shot in palaces and sets across Russia, Latvia and Lithuania. It also stars Jason Clarke as Catherine’s military commander and lover Potemkin, Bodyguard’s Gina McKee as her lifelong friend Countess Bruce, and Rory Kinnear as politician Panin.
Catherine The Great is due to air on Sky Atlantic this autumn.