So is Helen Mirren the sexiest woman on TV? Yes, according to the readers of Radio Times who, last month, voted the ever-popular star of Prime Suspect into that top slot, way above her nearest rival, Gillian Anderson, from The X Files.
But then Mirren has been running away with similar titles since Age of Consent, the 1969 movie in which she posed, naked, in the surf for lecherous artist James Mason. Then there was her tendency to disrobe in movies such as Savage Messiah, Excalibur and Caligula . And her fully-clothed but full-blooded assertion of sexuality in The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover, a project which led Ms Mirren to admit she particularly liked that role because it was a female sexual fantasy. And because, she said, some people don t like to think that a woman would bring a stranger into the loo, screw him and walk out without knowing his name, but of course, we do.
Even so, there obviously is far more to Helen Mirren than meets the thigh. In fact, all of this focusing on her legendary sex appeal could be said to have detracted from recognition of the fact that she is one of Britain s finest classical actors, to quote another title she once secured, from The Sunday Times.
For positive proof of this aspect of Mirren s considerable talents, one need only check the pulse of any of her aforementioned films; her performance as the powerfully manipulative mistress in The Long Good Friday; the role in Cal, for which she won a Best Actress prize at Cannes and her leading role in Some Mother s Son, which has recently been released on video. And, of course, her sassy role as the detective in Prime Suspect, a woman who could easily give the Spice Girls and their like a lesson, or three, in terms of real as opposed to comic book attitude.
Brian Mahon, who played the pock-marked prison warden in Some Mother s Son., has said that all Mirren has to do is walk onto a movie set and even the klieg lights fade to insignificance in the shade of her spiritual, intellectual and, yes, sexual energy.
However, Helen Mirren quickly hauls herself back from such a hyperbolic description of her power as an actor and woman.
I would love to be able to agree with that assessment of who I am, because I can t think of any greater compliment! she laughs. But the act of agreeing would immediately wipe out at least one of those supposed aspects of my character, the spiritual! And maybe the suggestion that I am intelligent! So I ll hedge around that one!
And as for me being sexy well, as I ve always said, I just don t think of myself that way. Even when I take off my clothes in movies! Though I am sexually self-confident. But, to tell you the truth, I really don t stop and think of whether or not those characteristics are central to who I am. Yet, even so, I definitely have thought a lot about acting for a long time and worked at it, very hard. In other words, worked hard at trying to find out what good acting is all about. And in the process of trying to find out, I have done some fairly off-the-wall things, like going to work with Peter Brook for a year, going to Africa. All of that, to me, is part of acting.
But what was Helen hoping to tap into by going to Africa with Peter Brook? Some emotional, spiritual, racial memory, what?
All those things, which are of seminal importance to anyone who is really serious about acting, she responds. But what we, in particular, were doing in Africa was working for a whole year, without language, trying to find out what the essence of all this is. In fact, the work with Peter Brook really had more to do with what a theatrical experience really is, as opposed to what a piece of great acting is. Brook never was, and still isn t, into great acting . As either an expression of ego or of personal power. He sees it more in the sense that theatre, or film can, through one group of people, do something of true worth for another group of people.
But, as I say, when I am actually involved in the process of acting I tend to freeze out such thoughts, focus instead on more practical things like thinking to myself, You really fucked that up, why can t you be better? All that. And I never really think I m doing anything of real worth, to tell you the truth.
Surely, on the contrary, Helen Mirren must know in her heart when she gets something totally right as an actor, even after the event, say, when she sees her work on a screen, television or otherwise?
No. Because I don t watch a lot of what I do, she claims. I m not curious. I should be, but I m not. I d watch something more because I am interested to see if the music is right and to see if, for example, a scene with a lot of extras really looked good. I m not at all interested in technically deconstructing my performance. It s something I ve done and it s gone and I want to let go. So when I think about acting, it s more general, not specifically to do with me.
How, then, in essence, would Helen Mirren describe what she does as an actor?
As someone who puts silence to words, rather than words to silence, she responds. Someone trying to find that space in between, or behind words, which tells us something about ourselves. Though, that said, I hate zombie acting! As in where actors obviously believe it when they are told that the only way to act on the screen is to do nothing. That is not true. But then I ve always been an admirer of great American film acting. Watch those people, they do a huge amount.
As in who?
Pacino, Brando, De Niro. Or Ingrid Bergman or Anna Magnani, who are my heroines. They definitely don t do nothing. But then, on the other hand, you see English actors not Irish actors, because they have an internal energy and liveliness which they can t repress even if they try to who do this awful zombie acting, walk around, as if dead! Watch the best of those American movie actors and they are so alive they are bursting with energy, even though they do it on a small scale. They are not throwing their arms around and shouting. But then Shakespeare was right, in relation to acting, when he said, Say it naturally, and don t throw your arms around. That s very much how I see acting.
But what about her personal life? Is Helen Mirren aware of being blessed, or cursed, with the kind of aura that tends to dominate any given space, even when she chooses to remain silent? It certainly has been suggested that she exerts total control over many of the men in her life, apart from current lover, movie director Taylor Hackford. His predecessors included Russian aristocrat Prince George Galitzine; fashion photographer James Wedge and actor Liam Neeson, about whom writer Carinthia West has said, They are very much her men, she moves into their lives, really becomes part of what they do.
Mirren is taken aback by the observation and the question. At least momentarily.
Did you speak with any of the men I ve lived with? Did they agree? Probably, they wouldn t, she says, a little sharply.
Then again, Helen, maybe they would. It is said that if Liam Neeson, for example, found himself in such a situation, he d happily yield to it because he happens to be the style of man who likes to be dominated by powerful women.
Not true, she responds. And the real point, in relation to me, is that I ve always fought hard to retain my own autonomy. I ve not been able to operate otherwise. My own economic autonomy is of paramount importance to me. And, preferably, the ability to live with the person I am living with in my house . Because I really do need to feel that nobody can kick me out of my house. I guess it s a working class thing of needing my own roof over my own head. But within relationships, I think I love men too much, in a slobbering, dribbling way, to try to control them. I really do adore men.
Really? All the time?
No. I despise them as well, of course, because all women do! she replies, laughing. But I also absolutely adore them, though yes, I know that to adore is not the healthiest of reactions, in love. That s what is so scary when you find yourself falling in love. Again, Shakespeare got it absolutely right. He described love as a sickness. And you do feel sick. You feel, literally, ill, because you are so frightened of what you know is coming. And all of that has to do with the fact that adoring someone is a very dangerous thing to do. And I must admit I ve been guilty of that leaning in my life!
So, through the act of adoration has Helen Mirren often yielded her power to a man?
Of course I have! she asserts. I don t say You re in charge, hon, I ll do whatever you say. Like, You re a right-wing conservative, so I ll become one! Never that. In other words, I have never yielded either my ability to think for myself or, as I say, my economic independence. And I never will. But in terms of smaller decisions, like where we go for dinner, I will yield, of course! Because the truth is that everybody wants to be told what to do. All women do. All men do. We all want someone to come along and say we re going to such-and-such a restaurant. You and I could probably sit here all night arguing about which restaurant we should go to. And all because none of us, really, can make decisions. We re all longing for someone to do that for us.
What the hell is Helen Mirren saying here? That we re all secretly longing for another mother, father, priest or God figure in the disguise of a lover?
No, just a good secretary! she laughs. Someone to organise things for us, so we can do our own thing. At least, that s how I am.
Okay, so let s shift the focus back to Helen Mirren s controversial cinematic past. Specifically, her decision, at the tender age of 23, to do those sensuous nude scenes in Age Of Consent a decision which, reportedly, upset a few of her fellow thespians in the RSC. Certainly, Helen s shedding of her light lace top during that beach scene in the movie clearly was a watershed, in more ways than one. It certainly helped to usher in the era of full frontal nudity in mainstream movies and, not surprisingly, led to Age Of Consent being described as pornographic in certain circles.
It wasn t pornography, for God s sake. I just took my clothes off! Helen exclaims. Though, in terms of nudity on the screen, yes, Age Of Consent was really, really early. But the Shakespeare company never had a problem with that. All they knew was that I had a film and had to ask for three months off to do it. They said fine and, after the film was finished, I went back to work with them.
Does Helen regret her decision to appear nude in movies such as Age of Consent or, more pointedly, Caligula, which was produced by Penthouse magazine?
No, she says, defiantly. In fact, when it comes to something like Caligula, I m really grateful for that movie because it paid my deposit on my first house! And I have absolutely no problems with doing things for the money, when you need the money. And I did need the money, at that point. I am sort of arty-farty, to a degree, but not totally. You can only afford that kind of attitude when you really can afford it!
Surely, with the Emmy-Award-winning success of Prime Suspect, Mirren can afford to be as arty-farty as she wants right now?
Right now, yes, she says, smiling. In fact, right now I shouldn t ever, ever do anything for the money, because I don t need to. But, even so, I have always believed that if you need money you should do what you have to do to get that money and have absolutely no qualms about it. On the other hand, if you have money you should never do anything simply to make money.
Many of Helen Mirren s closest friends in theatre claim that they wish she would return to the boards and that her decision to base herself in Los Angeles and do otherwise is a sore loss to British theatre. Does she want to return to the British stage?
Yes, I d love to, she says, sighing deeply. I d really, really love to re-assert my credibility as a serious actress. Well, not so much serious but as a stage actress. As in within the culture I love, the English language theatre that Britain has given to the world. I feel I am a part of that and I definitely don t want to lose it.
Is the subtext in all this that Helen Mirren believes that the lifetime of work she has done in film and on television is somehow less than had she remained in theatre?
Yes, she replies, having taken the time to give the question due consideration. I don t believe it, in theory, but I do, in my heart. And in my prejudice, I do. Because that is how I was brought up. My roots, and my route to wanting to be an actress was my love of Shakespeare. And that wasn t, remotely, on any intellectual level. It wasn t that I was a great student of Shakespeare. I simply saw the Southend Shakespearean Society do Hamlet when I was, like, 13 years old and that was it. I was gone. I d never read Shakespeare but my mom and dad took me to see Hamlet, although, again, on paper, that shouldn t have happened because I come from a working class family. Even so, my father was very well-educated and was Russian, and Russians love literature. So all of that was how I first fell in love with theatre, acting, Shakespeare. And, yes, I do have to say that the stage production of Hamlet I saw was a lot better than the film of Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, or whatever.
But would she also argue that this apparently magical stage production of Hamlet was better than the movie of On The Waterfront, which was released when Helen was roughly 13 and similarly swept away for the first time by one of her favourite actors, Brando?
Yes, I would, despite my love for Brando, she answers. That version of Hamlet was better than On The Waterfront. At least, as far as I was concerned. But I know what you are asking me, and it s a fair enough point, as in is there, intrinsically, a qualitative difference between acting for the stage and acting in films. What I would say to that is that the lines do cross. Occasionally. For example, Laurence Olivier playing Shakespeare on film is as great as Olivier playing the same role on stage. But then people who are great stage actors are also great film actors. Whereas the opposite just isn t true. Hardly any great film actors can act on stage.
But it s in my culture to believe that stage acting is superior. I m not saying I m right. I m just saying that this is my prejudice, despite what I said earlier about the fundamental differences between British acting and American acting. So, working from the level of that basic prejudice alone, I would want to go back on stage. And one day, I hope to.
Helen Mirren s original break came in the mid-1960s, when she played Kathleen, the Irish maid, in Eugene O Neill s Long Day s Journey Into Night. 30 years later, quite fittingly, she played another Kathleen, in Terry George s movie, Some Mother s Son, which was one of the most popular home-based movies released in Ireland last year. Mirren admits that, in common with Terry George, she saw this particular movie in Shakespearean terms.
Kathleen was me, in the sense of what she was saying throughout that drama, she elaborates. What she was able to express was something that I, Helen Mirren, feel. As in all the complexities of what she goes through, the confusion, the inability to say This is how things are. In fact, that s part of what happened at that press conference we gave, here in Dublin, for Some Mother s Son, when that chap, Jonathan Philbin Bowman, tried to push me to state my position in relation to the Northern Ireland situation being either a matter of A or B. That s not how I see life. It never was. I see the world as a flux moving between points A & B. And that s not a cop-out, that really is how I see things.
Even so, at that same press conference, Helen Mirren did utter her famous, far from flux-like and much reported comment, I hate those cowardly assholes, in relation to the IRA, who had resumed their bombing campaign between the time of the making of Some Mother s Son and the movie s release.
I did have that response, yes, but in general, I try to see the other side, she reflects. That s how I was brought up. And it is incredibly important to do that, I think. And that s part of why I didn t want Kathleen to be a didactic character. But I did want her voice to be genuinely my voice. And it is. And the film was the story of her journey. My journey. Where does she finish up? Saying no. As in no to everyone who is shouting in that hospital room. We took a long time to get that scene. That wasn t how the script originally was. Jim (Sheridan) had the idea that we bring all the main elements of the story together at that point. And I just thought it was so right that everything should fade to silence and to the look on my face. Especially because, by that stage words were, basically, meaningless.
That s why it was so devastating for me to see the knee-jerk response to the movie, particularly from those who just said, how dare you put bombers on the screen, in any kind of a sympathetic way? How dare you give them humanity. That s outrageous. They re not human beings, they re monsters. There is a monstrous element in there, of course. But I most definitely did not made that movie for it to be sympathetic to bombers. And, as I said at the time, I would not have made that movie if the IRA cease-fire had broken down.
Why not?
Well, okay, let me clarify that. I would have made the film we made but the film we did make was definitely very different from what it had originally been. As I indicated, when I told you that the last scene wasn t in the script. In fact, when Terry sent me the script, years ago, the peace process was not in place and I called him back and said, It s a really interesting idea, to see the whole thing from a woman s point of view, but I can t do this film when there are bombs going off in London.
Terry s original script also had more to do with the politicisation of this women and I wouldn t have done that, either. As in a movie that shows Kathleen slowly coming to agree with the Republican struggle. Because that was a story I didn t want anything to do with. It was not my feeling about Northern Ireland, about war, about anything. But it was amazing making that movie because we all went through an intense period of self questioning along these lines. in fact, I m very proud of the work I did in Some Mother s Son, no matter how controversial it becomes.
What I see Some Mother s Son as, on a fundamental level, is that it s a fairly honest look as a very small portion of a political movement at a particular moment in time. Some Mother s Son is not about those wankers who put the bomb in Manchester. It s also not glorifying those who were in the hunger strikes. Read the history of some of those people and you will see that they were not Gandhi! They were not Mandela. They were rather silly boys. And I wanted Kathleen to say that.
In fact, during that scene when her son is saying that he has never seen the world any clearer than he does now, while he s on that hunger strike, I wanted it to be obvious that Kathleen is looking at him with total hatred. And thinking, Do you know what you ve done to us, while you re off on your fucking pseudo-mystical, ridiculous, infantile trip? We re dealing with the reality of all this. Whereas you re giving yourself a halo. I hate you! I wanted her to hate him. I kept saying to Terry, I want to do a take where she loathes her son, this wanker. I really wanted that, as a follow on to the earlier scene, at the dance, where Kathleen looked at her son, with great love, before she realised that he was involved in this whole IRA thing.
So, summing up her experience working on Some Mother s Son, is Helen Mirren at all worried about the fact that she described IRA bombers as cowardly assholes ?
They are cowardly assholes, she retorts. And what, exactly, is there for me to worry about?
Becoming the enemy of the IRA?
I am the enemy of the IRA but I am not the enemy of Gerry Adams. Or Sinn Fiin. Maybe they think I am. But I really, really do think that to put a bomb in a supermarket whoever you are is a cowardly, asshole thing to do. Come out with your Samurai sword, like a Japanese warrior and say, Here I am. That s brave. Send out your biggest warrior and let him say, I will fight to the death. That s brave. But to put a bomb in a shopping centre on a Saturday, is a fucking cowardly asshole thing to do. It s not cloaked in glory. It s cowardice, totally. And you can t see it any other way.
Even Irish-Americans see that now. Now that terrorist bombing has come home to roost, as it were, following the bombing in Oklahoma. There was a time those fucking Noraid idiots, with their shamrocks and green hats, saw it as the Vogue magazine reading of the whole thing, so romantic, so Sean O Casey. But, let s face it, even O Casey stuck the knife into all that, in the end. And, in the end, I will stand over my belief that the people who put a bomb in that shopping centre in Manchester are cowardly assholes. n