Helen Mirren
Helen Mirren
Dame Helen Lydia Mirren, DBE, is an English actor. Mirren began her acting career with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967, and is one of the few performers who have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting, having won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2007, after two previous nominations, for her performance as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen. In 2015 she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, after two previous nominations, for her performance...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionMovie Actress
Date of Birth26 July 1945
CityLondon, England
American actors who voice animated movies are so brilliant at it, because by the nature of American speak, it's full of energy and full of commitment. And as a British actor, we have to kind of learn that.
When you do a voice in an animated film, you don't see the finished product at all. You're not animating. You're not doing the voice on the finished product. You're doing the voice long before.
Americans are very good at animating voices. I don't know why. They have a freedom with them that we British actors find more difficult to get to.
With that incredible voice that he [Alan Rickman] could play like a sort of wonderful instrument, like a cello or something. He played his voice, and he could be the most subtle of actors. And he could also be quite a big actor. He could do the grandiose performances as well.
Her Elizabeth is so genius. It's just fabulous and, in its comedic, excessive way, there is a lot of accuracy there.
I would feel very bad if she didn't like the way I played her. I certainly don't want to stick a knife in her - especially now that I'm a dame, and I might have that taken away from me.
I didn't want to be knocked over by a car and have my obituary talk only about Prime Suspect.
One thing I found hard to get scripted was the size of her ego. Her ego was so huge. She was about being the queen, and everybody had better treat her as the queen. I am not like that.
Obviously, we're putting 20 years into four hours, so things have to become truncated.
When you do Shakespeare they think you must be intelligent because they think you understand what you're saying
The most important thing is to bring people with Parkinson's into our world and for the public to have a real understanding of it, as they're beginning to have with autism.
I think we all have a dream of what it would be like not to work and grow heirloom tomatoes, and I do have that dream. It would be lovely. I do love gardening and all of that, but I do love my work.
It's a mystery, that thing about chemistry, because often people who hate each other in real life and hate each other on the set have great chemistry on the screen. And people who love each other in real life and love each other on the set have absolutely no chemistry whatsoever.
I can't say 'no' to an interesting role. I always tell my husband, 'That's it, I quit, I've done all I wanted,' and he's just like, 'Yeah, yeah. Sure.'