Helen Mirren on Starring in 'Hitchcock' and Her Early Career

first of all a question that I couldn't help but want to ask was when and why did I'm gonna butcher it but Elena Lydia vessel levena Maranatha Marian white became Helen Mirren when I was about 10 actually I was born Helen Lydia Mironov in fact obviously you you've just it explained what I would have been called if I had been born in Russia my father was born in Russia and my his our surname was Miran off but in it which made me more enough now but when I was about 10 my grandfather died and at that point my father who really didn't want to be a foreigner or a Russian particularly wanted to assimilate in the British society changed our name to Miran so that was when I became their own and growing up were the movies or TV or theater a big part of your life did you watch a lot go a lot no absolutely not at all you know not even really not even the radio I mean what the hell did we do at home we talked actually around the dinner table we talked and did our homework went to bed but no I'd seen very few movies by the time I was like 18 I could count them on one hand the ones that I remember seeing one of which was the Bolshoi Ballet so you can see we weren't great sort of you know cinema goers we didn't have television at home until after I left home so I was never exposed to television at home and it was only after I left home that I sort of we saw a little bit of theater but not even a lot of that because you know it was too expensive to go to the theater so I'd read though there wasn't there some production of Hamlet that really made it yeah yes it was an amateur production the southend-on-sea you know amateur dramatics Shakespeare Society did a production of Hamlet and my parents did take me to that I was about probably about 12 13 at the time and I that absolutely transported me it was probably a terrible production I'm sure it was you know bad costume was bad acting but I think to be exposed to the story of Shakespeare that world where a philia goes mad and you know and the ghost and and it's incredibly romantic to a 13 year old girl this romantic figure of Hamlet I was I was just completely transported by it and I think that that was a seminal moment in my life made me want to become an actress definitely well that yeah next question I mean I do you remember acting just sort of for fun messing around before it became a serious thing and then was there a moment that made you say this is what I really want to pursue well we didn't do much drama at school we didn't really have like nowadays they have drama programs we didn't have that in those days we had a nativity play and I played Eve it's our nativity play started right at the beginning must have been terribly long and I had a great costume which was a bit of old fur it was fabulous you know an old that every every eve played so it was very smelly but I thought it was very glamorous and and I loved that I loved being Eve first of all I was the Virgin Mary I was quite good as a Virgin Mary too and then I was a great Eve and then I I don't know just a little bit a little bit I realized that I something I really enjoyed and then and then seeing the Shakespeare led me into the whole idea of theatre and especially Shakespeare which was really why I started off my career doing Shakespeare when did it first occur you that maybe you might also pursue film and television well um American film at that time didn't really to me I just couldn't find subjects or characters that that interested me in American film but I got as a student in London I got exposed to European film I worked as an usherette in a small art house theater in Hampstead very famous one called the everyman I got to see all this wonderful art house films one of which actually was Citizen Kane so I knew that some great films were made in in America but you know that the great European filmmakers were exposed to me for the first time and I wanted to be a European I wanted to be Monica Vitti or or someone senior a or or especially an ax man Yanni but I knew this Oort of I couldn't do that but anyway so I wanted to be great theater actress and it was only after working in the theatre for about four or five six years I did a little bit's on film but I was so awful I didn't know what the hell I was doing I realized there was this whole world of of of acting and of storytelling and of drama that was that I didn't know anything about so I sort of consciously made an effort to learn and doing Caligula was you know part of my education an education that's only really was only really completed in spite of all the movies that I did and I did a lot of television but really doing prime suspect was the thing that really ultimately taught me about film acting there's plenty of nonsense that's out on the internet so I don't know if this is true but I read about one thing that where you had years ago gone to a palm reader I did can you share what that was about cause it's amazing it sort of was it was yes it was it was extraordinary and actually I got a message recently how did I get it but I guess through an email from the son of the man I went to see yes but I was in my early 20s and and very fraught as one is because you know you have all your ambition and and dreams but you don't know whether anything's ever going to happen for you is it all gonna go down the plughole you know and so you know ones are you okay oh yeah so you know you're you know I was very neurotic about all of this and I was told about this palm reader and I'm not into that sort of thing normally but I went off to this palm reader he was an Indian guy in a very ordinary house you know suburban house went into his front room and you gave him the money and and he gave you a piece of paper and a pencil he said write what I say down because you will forget what I say so I advised you because I will speak quite fast just write it down and he took my hand and he started talking scribbling away you know and I said staggered out of there like an hour later with this sheaf of papers with my writing on it sort of that represented the rest of my life but I couldn't he was quite right I couldn't remember what he'd said but I looked at this sheaf and I thought you know what I don't want to know I don't want to know what the future holds for me I want to go through life as an adventure and so I threw it in the nearest rubbish bin there was a rubbish bin dust down there and I threw it in the rubbish bin and walked off but the only thing I did remember was he said you will have success in your life you'll be very successful but you won't reach your pinnacle of success until after you're bit later on in your life after you're 40 of course when you're 20 you really don't want to be at you know it's like are you kidding me I'm going to be alive at 40 so and he was right I was very successful I was very successful as he I always sort of you know it's a young actress and I was always playing leading roles and theatre and television film but I didn't become sort of so-called household name till I was in my forties there's been this chapter I guess of the last 20 or so years where I think it's for nominations within that period Oscar nominations I just am curious what you've made of it because it is sort of unusual to have the trajectory go the way that yours is it is pretty unusual you're right I mean I think it's a combination thing I think the fact that the world is changing you know so much while everything that we do as actors is simply a reflection of the world around you so the world around me has changed so substantially since when I was you know in my early 20s especially as far as women are concerned so I think that that's a part of it and and then the pure luck the awful awful random luck of being you know asked to play a role that's it that's so perfectly well timed like Jane Tennison in prime suspect or the Queen you know that these roles coming your way where if they do veered off and gone to another actress you know it just would be a whole different story so one recognizes the huge good fortune and then as I say they you know you know the fact that the world around you has changed and so yes I think you're right I think that my trajectory would not have been possible you know 40 years ago in ledge it's a first time director feature narrative director who manages how does somebody like that as great as the material is and all that had had as he managed to get two terrific oscar-winning actors some of the most popular sort of up-and-coming actors just how are you what sold you on the idea that this was you know the next great one to take well you know you never know you never know you just have to follow your feeling your instinct and all the rest of it but I I just really like to Sasha I met with him and he's very smart he's funny very important and and he had us a call that wonderful combination between great confidence and great humility and itself as a hard combination to achieve you know very often it's the other way around knows confidence and great arrogance and that's a killer you know when you get the reverse which is a kind of confidence but married to a humility a recognition of the fact that I don't know you know I've never done this before so what do I do you know that that's great it's charming and and in a funny way it gives you more confidence so you know I'm a great one for jumping in at the deep end anyway and of course you never know what the result is going to be but do you hope for the best every day every single time you hope for the best he handled me and Tony and all the rest of this telecast with just with charm and kindness and really in the end that's all you know all you ask for as an actor you know is someone to be kind and to make you laugh you know and and and Sasha gave birth and he delivered a wonderful script that was the other thing he had he had resolved issues in the in the script and unjust made it made the piece cohesive so when when he did that presented that work then it makes you sit out and go oh this guy knows what he's doing he understood what was required for the drama of this piece just one last thing if I can I'd wanted to ask you you know how familiar first of all you were with this sort of secret or silent partner in this Hitchcock you know legend a lot of people are not aware of Alma at all and and to that and related to that to what extent the way that their relationship is portrayed in the film and the Whitfield cook element and all that you know to what extent is that actually and grounded in that I didn't know anything about Alma until I was sent the script and obviously then I you know looked it up and went well I don't know anything about this woman what a wonderful discovery what a great surprise what it's a little jewel in the history of filmmaking to know about this woman so you know that was just pure pleasure and I had to the great advantage of the book that her daughter wrote about here was the daughter of the great genius Alfred Hitchcock and the one book she chooses to write about her family life she chooses to write about her mother and to call her Alma Reville and because she did want to have her mother's contribution recognized and so that was an incredible resource for me as far as the relationship with Whitfield we know that Alma when he was a friend of the family but no question about that she and wit did write together he did write a book called taxi to Dubrovnik we don't suggest in the film they that they have an affair we just say that they have a a collegial you know working relationship you know one doesn't know similarly you don't know what the Queen said the morning that Diana died you know we don't know these things of course we don't I think that the general approach that we take both to hitch and to Alma and to the people around them is very true and accurate and from the all the response that we are getting from the people who knew hitch and knew um they are and worked with them they are saying finally that is the man that we knew we recognize that's the man we knew so that's very gratifying the details it movie as Hitchcock would say it's only a movie I wasn't able to be in the press conference but somebody I believe asked how would Helen Marion over the course of her career if you had worked with Alvarez got at various points in your career how do you believe you would have tolerated him when I was young it would have been a disaster absolute disaster because I would have been bolshie and argumentative and you know a real pain in the ass and then it basically an idiot now I would love to work with him I would absolutely love to work with him because now I know enough about filmmaking to understand the greatness of that technician and and when you when you're supported by that kind of technical ability you know and I'm not surprised he didn't really direct actors he did he cast them that was his direction once you're cast now it's up to you and I kind of approve of that I you know I think that's absolutely right it is up to you as long as the structure around you is is beautifully made as his but you know the way he he he constructed such a beautiful makeup you know that mechanism is great you just do your job in the middle of it that's what we paid to do and I kind of agree with him now I wouldn't have been I would have been awful Oh

Channel: The Hollywood Reporter

Views: 17,681

Keywords: THR, helen mirren, youtube, movie, actress, Film, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, Hitchcock

Id: EroBQjO9Y6Q

Length: 16min 29sec (989 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 30 2012