How perfect that Chicago was in the midst of violent thunderstorms during a scheduled phone interview with the acclaimed Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren, who stars in director Julie Taymor's forthcoming adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest? But it was actually Mirren's role as the tough owner of a Reno brothel in the based on a true story Love Ranch ( in which she co-stars with Joe Pesci and is directed by husband Taylor Hackford ) that was the jumping-off point for a lively discussion with this adored queen of the cinema. In this exclusive interview with Windy City Times, the forthright Mirren touches on everything from her desire to work with more women, her pride in her queer fan base, her innate sensuality ( visibly intact at 64—yeah! ) , and her heartfelt reflections on celebrating Gay Pride every day of the year.
Helen Mirren: Hi, Richard. How are you?
Windy City Times: Hi Helen, or is it Dame Helen?
HM: [ Laughs ] Helen's fine.
WCT: Greetings from your huge queer fan base in Chicago.
HM: [ Brightens ] Oh—love it! Hey, Chicago! Hey, guys.
WCT: Where it's raining cats and dogs...
HM: Oh no, it's beautiful here. I'm looking out at the sunny Californian sky.
WCT: So—let's just jump right in. From Countess Sofya [ her Oscar nominated role in The Last Station ] to a bordello Madame [ in Love Ranch ] .
HM: [ Laughs ] Yes, yes.
WCT: It seems like a stretch but really they share what a lot of your characters do—great passion, they're intelligent, there's a certain world-weariness…
HM: Yes, yes. In terms of shooting I did Love Ranch before I did Last Station. It just took a long time for the film to be completed and distributed. But that was the way round I did them. It's true, yes, well, I guess maybe when you get to a certain age that's the name of the game [ chuckles ] world weariness. But I mean, what two great characters—how lucky am I really? You've reminded me; I've completely forgotten about Sofya and to go from Grace Botempo to Sofya Tolstoy. … I mean, fantastic. In basically one year. I think I shot both of those in one year.
WCT: How lovely was it to finally do a project with your husband [ director Taylor Hackford ] ?
HM: It was so great to have someone to go home with. You know 90 percent of my working life I've got to go off to my little hotel room or my rented apartment on my own, you know, and put my head down. It's like going into the nunnery, really, going off to do a film. And here I had someone to play with at the weekend; I had someone to hang with. It was just great. Having said that, on the set we lived separate lives. I was the actress, he was the director and you'd never have guessed that I was his wife. If a stranger had walked onto the set and didn't know, I don't think they would have guessed that we were married. Except when occasionally I told him to shut up [ laughs hard ] which I would never normally do to any director, except my husband.
WCT: Women are finally big box office again, which is great, says the gay man who loves chick flicks. So when are you going to do a film with Meryl or Bette or Cher or Liza or Barbra—our gay icons, like yourself?
HM: Oh, whenever anyone asks me. Whenever they … you know it's the script that's difficult. It's difficult to find the right, good, wonderful work that we all want to do and once it comes along we'll all jump at it. Because women actually love to work with other women. They looovvve it; they have a ball. Because we get to do it so rarely. All of our working lives, you know, we spend on a set with 150 guys basically and about three women. It's getting better but we love to work with other actresses.
WCT: In a couple of your roles coming up they've switched the gender and you've just worked with Julie Taymor on The Tempest on one of them. ( The male lead Prospero has changed to Prospera, with Mirren in the part. ) Or, are you doing that now?
HM: No, no. We did that. That's finished. That will be showing in Venice.
WCT: Lovely. So a difference between working with a male director—like, say, your husband—and a female director like Julie Taymor?
HM: Nothing.
WCT: Nothing?
HM: Very similar. Both obsessive. Both unbelievably energetic. Both totally committed and visionaries. I mean every director is different because they're different artists and they all have their own visions and the story that they want to tell and they way they want to tell it is individual to every director. But that said, they have very similar characteristics as well and I would say, especially, incidentally, Taylor and Julie. It's not a loosey-goosey situation on either of their film sets.
WCT: Well, I love—and I don't know how it's happening—that producers or writers or directors want to work with you so much that they're changing the gender [ of your characters ] [ Laughs ] .
HM: Well, you know, The Tempest was something Julie and I both agreed could work. She'd done the play a couple of times before so she knew the play really, really well which was a great advantage. And I had seen the play fairly recently and thought, "You know what? You could do this as a woman." I was longing to play a really great Shakespearean role but I didn't want to play Volumnia [ from Shakespeare's Coriolanus ] , you know. Volumnia's boring. There's very few roles that you can play as you get older. So I thought I'd purloin…
WCT: Wait. Did Helen Mirren just say there are very few roles you can play as you get older?
HM: No, I'm talking about Shakespearean roles. In the canon of Shakespeare. There's a couple but in comparison with the number of roles there are for men, they start getting a bit down in the ground—the Shakespearean roles.
WCT: I love also that you're going to do Arthur and take on the Gielgud role with Russell Brand. You must be looking forward to that.
HM: [ Amused ] I am. I'm rather nervous, I have to confess. I'm horribly nervous, actually.
WCT: Well, you're sort of the queen of offbeat casting—you do it so well. You did it in this film with Joe Pesci, and did it so beautifully with my beloved Lee Daniels [ in Shadowboxer, in which she co-starred with Cuba Gooding, Jr. ] .
HM: Oh yes, don't you love Lee? He's so great.
WCT: I think—when you do the lesbian film with Ellen DeGeneres...
HM: Oh yes, we'll get Lee to direct it.
WCT: He's like the perfect guy for that, right?
HM: Yeah, he is. Perfect. He and Ellen might clash horns a bit, I don't know.
WCT: Of course, you're so aware that you have this huge lesbian fan base.
HM: Yes—which I'm very proud of and I love!
WCT: Well, with this New York magazine photo shoot ( Mirren is posed in a tub with her breasts exposed ) I think pin ups of you just went up all over town with the ladies. [ Laughs ]
HM: Not a pin-up, though! I hope it's a very naturalistic photo. That was, I think, the intention. Bold and bare—bare from the neck up rather than from the neck down.
WCT: Yes—and it gets into that thing you've talked about of sorting being a bit rebellious. A good friend of mine—a lesbian who does our podcast [ Amy Matheny ] —said to me, "You know, one reason why I love The Mirren and why we ( meaning the queer community ) love her so much is because she's so free sexually, or seems to be. And that really appeals to the queer community." Would you agree with that assessment?
HM: I don't know. I mean, I try to be…by nature I think I'm maybe rather uptight but all my life I've kind of fought against my own bourgeois tendencies—if you like—because I kind of disapprove of them in theory. So I've tried to be as open and as real as possible. Having said that, I also love unreality. I love theatre and I love dressing up and I love fancy and I love glitter and I love lavish meals and sequins and feathers and I love all of that. I think we're allowed all of that. We're allowed it all. Who's to make rules, you know? And so called liberated people sometimes make the harshest rules of all.
WCT: Which is so odd; so strange. Hey, listen—it's Gay Pride month.
HM: I know. I know!
WCT: Your movie's opening during Gay Pride. How are you going to celebrate?
HM: Oh gosh, I'll probably celebrate as usual by working and celebrating all the incredible gay people that I've worked with over the years. You know I get so enraged by bigotry and homophobia and in my profession, obviously, we owe so much to the gay community—writers, directors, designers—on every level of every corner of my professional life I've worked with brilliant, brilliant gay people—men and women—and I personally owe them so much. It's a debt that I recognize that I owe and the sort of idiocy of homophobia and the ignorance just makes me so enraged; so enraged. So, Gay Pride month, week, day, I will personally just be celebrating all those incredible people that I've worked with.
