ELIZABETH I, THE CIA & ME
Dame Helen Mirren has a penchant for the monarchy. She has played three queens: Elizabeth I in a 2005 television miniseries; Elizabeth II in 2006 film The Queen and the recent play The Audience, and Queen Charlotte in 1994 film The Madness Of King George. She is the only actress to have portrayed both Queen Elizabeths on screen - ever.
So the writers of new film Red 2 knew full well what they were doing when they wrote in a scene in which Dame Helen’s character Victoria is admitted to an asylum, suffering from a rather regal misconception (she believes she is Elizabeth I).
‘I tried so hard to wriggle out of that,’ she confesses. ‘I can’t remember how that came about, actually. I think the writers had written this [regal delusion], and they thought it was very funny, of course.
‘I think I suggested that it should be Elizabeth I. I thought it would be a funnier take than being the present Queen… but certainly the writers thought it would be hysterical to see me pretending to be the Queen.’
Dame Helen forms part of a stellar line-up in Red 2, an action-comedy sequel about retired CIA agents. She is joined by British greats Sir Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones, as well as John Malkovich, Bruce Willis and Mary-Louise Parker.
I met Dame Helen and Bruce Willis ahead of the film’s release, on a boat heading down the Thames, past some of the key locations. It is a blisteringly hot summer’s day, and Dame Helen is in high spirits. But while she says that she didn’t think twice about taking the part in the sequel, she does confess that she nearly turned down the role as a sharp-shooting assassin in the original film.
‘I was absolutely over the moon the first time I got offered the role in Red,’ she says, before pausing.
‘Actually, that’s a bit of a lie. I was apprehensive. I thought people would think I had sold out. And then I realised how utterly stupid that was. It was an incredible opportunity to do something I’d never done before. I was just coming off the first Queen movie and it was brilliant to jump in the opposite direction,’ she says.
Not that she wouldn’t return enthusiastically to her earlier roles. When asked which part she’d most like to revisit, she enthuses, ‘Almost all of them. It’s great to play a character that can develop, with time, in real time, so that as you get older, the character gets older, and as the world around you changes, the character changes. You can only really do that on television I guess, but there was a character I played many years ago in a film called Cal [in which she plays the widow of an RUC policeman murdered by the IRA ]. It would be fun to visit that character now.’
And she certainly still has great affection for the queens she has played. She even confesses that, apart from a pair of shoes, one of the things she most covets in the world would be ‘A handwritten parchment from Queen Elizabeth I. That would get me, definitely. To own a piece of history like that would be so incredible. Maybe one of her letters to her ambassadors rejecting the hand of the King of Spain.’
Dame Helen’s co-star, Bruce Willis, who became a global heart-throb in television series Moonlighting, before becoming a seriously bankable Hollywood star as John McClane in the Die Hard franchise, isn’t known for pulling his punches – particularly around journalists. He certainly doesn’t suffer fools, and gave one recent interview, to Daybreak’s Kate Garraway, in a green-trimmed bathrobe.
In fact, when asked how he juggles his film commitments and his young family (his youngest daughter, Mabel, is just over a year old) he prefaces his answer with a long sigh.
‘I’m fortunate in that I get to bring my family with me when I travel. It would be impossible, unbearable for anyone I was working with if I didn’t have my family with me. I would be moaning about it all the time. I have a little baby, and I love hanging out with her.
‘I think attention must be paid to your family and your friends and how you treat them, and I don’t think there’s anything more important.’
He also grudgingly reveals that vanity and a love of outdoor pursuits are his inspiration for keeping in such good shape. And that he can’t stand the sound of his voice when he sings. ‘It really is excruciating,’ he sighs.
So no singing roles, then. But how does he keep playing action roles, without things getting stale?
‘I kind of take it very seriously, take myself seriously, take the film seriously. I like to try to make people laugh more than I like to fight.’
But does Mr Willis – who has now made five Die Hard films – get a kick out of creating a franchise?
‘My favourite part of making films is the actual day-to-day process of getting in front of the camera and trying to make it funny or romantic,’ he says.
‘I was pleased to return [for the second Red film] because when we did the first one it was very ambitious. It’s not often that they try to make a film that has romance, comedy and action all in the same film. I always thought that one part would have to come out but they all stayed in. So this time we just added more romance, more comedy, more action.
‘When we all got back together – I think it was about two years or a year and a half in between – it was as if we had just seen each other the day before. Everybody was ready.’
Red 2 is on general release now.
Catherine Zeta-Jones (Katja) plays a former lover of Bruce Willis’s character Frank Moses. Ahead of the film’s release, the 43-year-old, who has been receiving treatment for bipolar disorder, said: ‘The character is so much fun. She’s a spy with a sexy twist. Even wearing heels and running through the streets of Paris has been fun for me.
‘I couldn’t have dreamt of a [better] ensemble cast. They are so cool and well prepared, so it was just fun.’
Sir Anthony Hopkins, who plays a mad bombmaker in Red 2, has won an Oscar, two Emmys, three Bafta awards and was awarded the Bafta Academy Fellowship in 2008, but is still ‘mystified’ by the world of acting.
‘Working with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Bruce Willis was wonderful,’ he said of the film. ‘I’ve worked with Catherine before and about 20 years ago I went to see Die Hard and thought: “Oh, that Bruce Willis, he’s really great,” and now here I am working with him. And it still doesn’t make any sense to me how any of this happens because I’m still mystified by the process.’
His success is something that pleases him deeply. Bullied as a child, his achievements are his way of ‘showing them’.
‘I don’t know if it was dyslexia or attention deficit disorder, or just me being a problem child, but I sat in the back of the classroom and didn’t know what any of the teachers were talking about – I was bottom of the class at everything,’ he said in a recent interview.
‘In the end I was so angry and enraged that I made a certain choice in life. I thought: “I will get my revenge, I will become rich and famous and that will show them.”’
And he has.
So the writers of new film Red 2 knew full well what they were doing when they wrote in a scene in which Dame Helen’s character Victoria is admitted to an asylum, suffering from a rather regal misconception (she believes she is Elizabeth I).
‘I tried so hard to wriggle out of that,’ she confesses. ‘I can’t remember how that came about, actually. I think the writers had written this [regal delusion], and they thought it was very funny, of course.
‘I think I suggested that it should be Elizabeth I. I thought it would be a funnier take than being the present Queen… but certainly the writers thought it would be hysterical to see me pretending to be the Queen.’
Dame Helen forms part of a stellar line-up in Red 2, an action-comedy sequel about retired CIA agents. She is joined by British greats Sir Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones, as well as John Malkovich, Bruce Willis and Mary-Louise Parker.
I met Dame Helen and Bruce Willis ahead of the film’s release, on a boat heading down the Thames, past some of the key locations. It is a blisteringly hot summer’s day, and Dame Helen is in high spirits. But while she says that she didn’t think twice about taking the part in the sequel, she does confess that she nearly turned down the role as a sharp-shooting assassin in the original film.
‘I was absolutely over the moon the first time I got offered the role in Red,’ she says, before pausing.
‘Actually, that’s a bit of a lie. I was apprehensive. I thought people would think I had sold out. And then I realised how utterly stupid that was. It was an incredible opportunity to do something I’d never done before. I was just coming off the first Queen movie and it was brilliant to jump in the opposite direction,’ she says.
Not that she wouldn’t return enthusiastically to her earlier roles. When asked which part she’d most like to revisit, she enthuses, ‘Almost all of them. It’s great to play a character that can develop, with time, in real time, so that as you get older, the character gets older, and as the world around you changes, the character changes. You can only really do that on television I guess, but there was a character I played many years ago in a film called Cal [in which she plays the widow of an RUC policeman murdered by the IRA ]. It would be fun to visit that character now.’
And she certainly still has great affection for the queens she has played. She even confesses that, apart from a pair of shoes, one of the things she most covets in the world would be ‘A handwritten parchment from Queen Elizabeth I. That would get me, definitely. To own a piece of history like that would be so incredible. Maybe one of her letters to her ambassadors rejecting the hand of the King of Spain.’
Dame Helen’s co-star, Bruce Willis, who became a global heart-throb in television series Moonlighting, before becoming a seriously bankable Hollywood star as John McClane in the Die Hard franchise, isn’t known for pulling his punches – particularly around journalists. He certainly doesn’t suffer fools, and gave one recent interview, to Daybreak’s Kate Garraway, in a green-trimmed bathrobe.
In fact, when asked how he juggles his film commitments and his young family (his youngest daughter, Mabel, is just over a year old) he prefaces his answer with a long sigh.
‘I’m fortunate in that I get to bring my family with me when I travel. It would be impossible, unbearable for anyone I was working with if I didn’t have my family with me. I would be moaning about it all the time. I have a little baby, and I love hanging out with her.
‘I think attention must be paid to your family and your friends and how you treat them, and I don’t think there’s anything more important.’
He also grudgingly reveals that vanity and a love of outdoor pursuits are his inspiration for keeping in such good shape. And that he can’t stand the sound of his voice when he sings. ‘It really is excruciating,’ he sighs.
So no singing roles, then. But how does he keep playing action roles, without things getting stale?
‘I kind of take it very seriously, take myself seriously, take the film seriously. I like to try to make people laugh more than I like to fight.’
But does Mr Willis – who has now made five Die Hard films – get a kick out of creating a franchise?
‘My favourite part of making films is the actual day-to-day process of getting in front of the camera and trying to make it funny or romantic,’ he says.
‘I was pleased to return [for the second Red film] because when we did the first one it was very ambitious. It’s not often that they try to make a film that has romance, comedy and action all in the same film. I always thought that one part would have to come out but they all stayed in. So this time we just added more romance, more comedy, more action.
‘When we all got back together – I think it was about two years or a year and a half in between – it was as if we had just seen each other the day before. Everybody was ready.’
Red 2 is on general release now.
THE LOVER
Catherine Zeta-Jones (Katja) plays a former lover of Bruce Willis’s character Frank Moses. Ahead of the film’s release, the 43-year-old, who has been receiving treatment for bipolar disorder, said: ‘The character is so much fun. She’s a spy with a sexy twist. Even wearing heels and running through the streets of Paris has been fun for me.
‘I couldn’t have dreamt of a [better] ensemble cast. They are so cool and well prepared, so it was just fun.’
THE BOMBMAKER
Sir Anthony Hopkins, who plays a mad bombmaker in Red 2, has won an Oscar, two Emmys, three Bafta awards and was awarded the Bafta Academy Fellowship in 2008, but is still ‘mystified’ by the world of acting.
‘Working with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Bruce Willis was wonderful,’ he said of the film. ‘I’ve worked with Catherine before and about 20 years ago I went to see Die Hard and thought: “Oh, that Bruce Willis, he’s really great,” and now here I am working with him. And it still doesn’t make any sense to me how any of this happens because I’m still mystified by the process.’
His success is something that pleases him deeply. Bullied as a child, his achievements are his way of ‘showing them’.
‘I don’t know if it was dyslexia or attention deficit disorder, or just me being a problem child, but I sat in the back of the classroom and didn’t know what any of the teachers were talking about – I was bottom of the class at everything,’ he said in a recent interview.
‘In the end I was so angry and enraged that I made a certain choice in life. I thought: “I will get my revenge, I will become rich and famous and that will show them.”’
And he has.