Helen Mirren Turns The Page
Why do a supporting role in an action sequel after an award-drenched year? The challenge of the new, she says.
Give her an Oscar. Give her a title. Give her whatever she wants.
Just don’t give Dame Helen Mirren any respect.
“I don’t much like the word respect,” the 62-year-old actress said in her Beverly Hills hotel suite as she prepared to leave for the airport to fly back to England.
“I don’t like to be respected. I tell people not to respect me. I don’t deserve to be respected on any level.”
But then Mirren shrugged her shoulders. “Having played the queen, I do have trouble sometimes getting people not to respect me. I have trouble reminding people that I am just an actress, and not actually the queen.”
Mirren, who is married to director Taylor Hackford, got her respect the old-fashioned way – by earning it through a four-decade-long film and stage career, and by enjoying the best year any actress has ever had. Just last year, she won an Oscar for playing Queen Elizabeth II in “The Queen,” and was seen in two Emmy-winning roles — Queen Elizabeth I in the HBO miniseries “Elizabeth I,” and Detective Jane Tennison in the popular British TV series “Prime Suspect: The Final Act.”
She is following those triumphs with a supporting role as Nicolas Cage’s mother in the action sequel “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” which opens Dec. 21. Playing an expert in dead languages, she helps her son interpret symbols during his quest to clear his family name in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER: You’ve worked very hard for a very long time to achieve a certain position in the movie industry, which has rewarded you with an Oscar. I don’t understand why you’ve decided to follow that Oscar win with a supporting role in someone else’s popcorn movie. Is that a career strategy?
DAME HELEN MIRREN (laughing): Oh no. I’ve never been a strategic person. My choices have always been a reaction against the thing I’ve just done. I ask myself: “What would be interesting to do that would be different from what I’ve just done?”
OCR: And you came up with an action sequel?
MIRREN: Sometimes I make choices because there’s an area I don’t know that much about and I would love to explore it. I didn’t seek out an action sequel. I didn’t call my agent and say: “Look for a nice popcorn movie for me.”
OCR: Did you jump at it when it came your way?
MIRREN: Actually, I wasn’t too sure about it at first. I hadn’t seen the first movie, and I was a little worried about doing a sequel. I’ve never done a sequel, and I questioned whether I should do it.
OCR: What swayed you?
MIRREN: I liked the character, and I liked that it wasn’t a leading role.
OCR: Why weren’t you looking for another leading role?
MIRREN: I needed a relief from that sort of responsibility. I wanted to give that responsibility over to someone else for a while.
OCR: Did you ever get to see the original “National Treasure?”
MIRREN: Not until after I read the script for the sequel, and I wasn’t thinking particularly positive about that script. These films’ finest hour is not on the page. They’re confusing on the page, and you don’t get the visceral feeling that you get on the set. The bare bones of the story are often complex and difficult to follow. I could sort of see it was a vaguely interesting little role, and there was some action stuff in it. Then I got to see the first movie, and I was quite taken with it. I thought it was charming and intelligent. It not only worked, but it brought to kids to the idea that history was something alive and exciting. It had a value beyond the pure entertainment, which, of course, was lovely.
OCR: Did it turn out to be as different as you had hoped?
MIRREN: Very different from any acting experience I had ever had.
OCR: In a good way?
MIRREN: Of course.
OCR: The director has said that the most difficult aspect of making this film was making sure it made sense. Is that true?
MIRREN: He and the rest of us worked assiduously, and with a great deal of commitment every day, to try to make the characters work, and to make the story work.
OCR: My wife and I drove home from the screening last night and discussed whether it all made sense.
MIRREN (laughing): I’m sure there are holes, but it’s a wonderful fantasy. That’s what I love about these movies. They’re not trying to be documentaries. They are Indiana Jones. But the brilliance of them is that they use historical detail with complete accuracy to move the story along.
OCR: In the movie, you are an expert in an obscure language. Did you work to make that accurate?
MIRREN: Yes, I went online to research the language and read everything I could about it. I learned that there are something like only four people in the world who know this language, and they are all arguing with each other all the time about what the symbols mean. The discussion about those symbols in the movie is 100 percent accurate. But one shouldn’t be too literal-minded about these movies. They are a fantasy adventure.
OCR: Tell me about last year.
MIRREN: Oh, where do I start? Actually, last year didn’t start last year. Last year started about two years before last year. That’s when the projects I did last year were being formulated. They all started at different times, actually, but at some point, I came to realize that I was going to end up playing Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Elizabeth II in the same year.
OCR: Was that overwhelming?
MIRREN: Just until you start doing it, and then you put your head down, grit your teeth and start working.
OCR: As for the awards season, did you appreciate what was happening to you as you were going through it?
MIRREN: Of course, but it was exhausting. I sound like a wanker saying this but you are very exposed at all those award shows. The spotlight is always on you and it is very much about how you look and what you say.
OCR: It couldn’t have helped to be the Oscar front-runner all the way through the process?
MIRREN:Yes, it was every second, and every minute worrying about saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing or wearing the wrong thing.
OCR: What was Oscar night like?
MIRREN: I had a good dress, which was important because I was very comfortable. I know that sounds really silly, but I wasn’t fighting my dress. You can’t be fighting your dress at such an event.
OCR: Did you feel any pressure?
MIRREN: I didn’t feel pressure at all. I felt utterly calm. And I enjoyed myself. I loved every minute of that night. I had been nominated twice before, and I was terrified the first time. The second time I knew I wouldn’t win so I was mostly relaxed. This time, I was absolutely determined to enjoy it. I had had such incredible good will coming toward me from America in the weeks that preceded the Oscars that I felt all warm inside.
OCR: Give me an example of the good will?
MIRREN: Each time I flew back from England, someone at customs would recognize me and wish me luck. It was so sweet. That happened wherever I went in America. So that night, I was floating on a cloud of love.
OCR: How do you feel about the title Dame?
MIRREN: Oh, that also brings me too much respect. I am a dame, but not in the sense that people think. I’m more of a “Guys and Dolls” dame.