On Thursday, Helen Mirren stopped by “The Talk” on CBS to promote the Audible premiere of “Moriarty: The Silent Order”. She talked about voicing Lady Milverton and joked about the possibility of joining the EGOT ranks in case of a Grammy win for her performance. A clip of her appearance can be found in the video archive with screencaptures being added to the photo gallery.

“I play sort of an arch villainous [Lady Milverton] really. I’ve always wanted to play an arch villainous. I was rather cross that I was never asked in any of the Bond movies to be like the big villain…so it was a wonderful opportunity.” Host Jerry O’Connell asks, “You have Emmy, an Oscar and a Tony – is this our Grammy? Are we getting that EGOT?” “Wouldn’t that be lovely. There are so many brilliant actresses who can also sing, and I want to kill them because I can’t sing at all.” Mirren adds, “I’m never going to win my Grammy from singing…They often win a Grammy for writing a book, then reading it, a sort of tell all book.” She jokes, “My Sex Life by Helen Mirren.” (Helen Mirren, The Talk, November 09, 2023)

Tuesday night, on the one-month anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack on southern and central Israel that sparked the nation’s biggest conflict in 50 years, an audience gathered at the Linwood Dunn Theater of the Pickford Center for Motion Picture Studies in Hollywood for a packed industry screening of – and panel discussion following – the powerful biopic “Golda” starring Helen Mirren in the title role as former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. The eerie timeliness of the film couldn’t have been known when it was released in the United States on August 25, nor in the UK on October 6 (the day before the conflict was launched). “Golda” tells the story of how Meir, ill with malignant lymphoma, runs interference during the tense 19 days of the Yom Kippur War in ’73. Mirren, thanks to a masterful make-up job by the Bleecker Street movie’s hair, makeup and prosthetics designer Karen Hartley-Thomas, is transformed into the chain-smoking Israeli leader for the duration of the film’s 100 minutes. Mirren and Hartley-Thomas along with the Israeli-born “Golda” director Guy Nattiv all were present Tuesday for the post-screening panel talk that was made possible by the fact the film was made internationally (in London) and not under a SAG contract as the SAG-AFTRA walkout continues. A complete article on the Q&A can be read over at GoldDerby. A clip can be watched in the video archive.

Here’s our final anniversary update, and this one comes with a back story. 10 years ago, when I was working on launching the site, my good online friend Anke was cleaning up her archives and sent me a couple of tapes featuring old Helen Mirren appearances from the time she promoted “The Queen”. A decade later, when I was preparing the site’s 10th anniversary, I stumbled upon those tapes and realised I never digitalized them. So today, with many thanks to Anke, we can watch Helen’s appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, This Morning, Film 2006 with Jonathan Ross and Friday Night with Jonathan Ross for the first time in their entirety. Screencaptures from all shows have been added as well, and you can also find screencaptures from the 2001 television pilot Georgetown, in which Helen starred, but which was never picked up as a series. Enjoy all the updates.

The legendary Michael Gambon has passed away at age 81. He has been Helen Mirren’s leading man in three iconclastic productions: 1983’s “Antony and Cleopatra” with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the unforgettable thief in Peter Greenaway’s masterpiece “The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover” as well as Helen’s secret lover and eventual murder victim in the Oscar-winning “Gosford Park”. On the day of Mr. Gambon’s passing, Helen Mirren was promoting “Golda” in the United Kingdom, during which she remembered her colleague in an interview with the BBC.

I’m going to smile when I think about Michael, because he was incredibly funny. He had this natural Irish sense of humor. Naughty, but very, very funny. He was enormously self deprecating but at the same time and instinctive actor and a wonderful person to be around, just in general. He kept me constantly in laughter. We had some incredibly funny moments playing “Antony and Cleopatra” together. But, an extraordinary actor. An extraordinary contribution to the British landscape of theatre. An enormously important past within that landscape, and we will all miss him a lot (Helen Mirren, BBC, September 28, 2023).

In an interview aired by Israel’s Channel 12 on Sunday, Mirren spoke about her leading role in “Golda” depicting Israel’s first and only female prime minister, Golda Meir, during the period of the fateful 1973 Yom Kippur War. The interview was recorded in July when Mirren was in Israel for the premiere of the movie at the Jerusalem Film Festival. “I believe in Israel, in the existence of Israel, and I believe Israel has to go forward into the future, for the rest of eternity,” Mirren said. “I believe in Israel because of the Holocaust.” She revealed there were those who had tried to talk her out of making the film due to Israel’s controversial position on the world stage, but, she said, “I’ve met such extraordinary people in Israel.” “I know there is a base, a foundation of deep, intelligence, thoughtfulness, commitment, poetry even in Israel that is very, very special, I think,” said Mirren. Mirren admitted that before making the film, “I didn’t know a lot about Golda” but said she clearly recalled “the feeling of triumph and satisfaction and of awe actually that a woman had been elected to lead a country. It was a very exciting moment for women in general. Understanding her physical suffering… as well as the mental suffering of dealing with this enormous burden of the war, that was a revelation for me.” The complete article accompanying the interview can be read here, while the full interview can be found in the video archive.

One of Helen Mirren’s most anticipated dramatic roles today arrives in theaters today – although, due to the dual strike in Hollywood, it will not likely for “Golda” to make a splash at the box office. Reviews have been mixed – universally praising Mirren’s performance and criticising the film’s pace and lack of depth of Meir’s character. In one recommended review on Roger Ebert, Christy Lemire writes that “[Meir] remains frustratingly out of reach, even in her suffering. But there’s a bitter irony in the fact that she sees her doctor in secret at the morgue, and each time she walks down the hallway toward her appointment, more and more bodies are stacked up along the walls. It’s a powerful image”. Vanity Fair has also published an in-depth article on transforming Helen Mirren behind the scenes, which is worth a read. There has also been a new clip released which you can find in the video archive.

My goal was to acknowledge the trailblazer who paved the way for Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel. In the 1970s, when men were misogynists – especially those commanders – a woman came and led the country. This is unheard of. I think it’s something to remember and to celebrate. (Guy Nattiv, director of “Golda”, Vanity Fair, August 25, 2023)

Among the many misfortunes of the current dual strike in Hollywood is the lack of promotion for films that would need a good boost by star power. “Golda” might be a prime example among the current releases, which will probably be overlooked by many, simply because they don’t know it exists. In an effort to reach a wider audience, its distributor Bleecker Street is working with Fathom Events, a unique and prolific theatrical distributor, that has mastered the art of finding audiences for one-off cinematic events, from live broadcasts of opera, stage plays and live concert pics to anniversary rereleases of classic Hollywood films. Fathom will present a Q&A with Mirren and director Guy Nattiv in theaters across the country Aug. 23, two days before the film’s official release. (It was taped before the SAG-AFTRA strike.) Fathom has also released a (very, very brief) making of featurette on the film, giving us a glimpse of the makeup process as well as an interview with Helen. Additionally, new production stills have been added to the photo gallery.

Bleecker Street has dropped the theatrical trailer (the same as the international one, sans the subtitles 🙂 ) for “Golda” – a “ticking-clock thriller set during the tense 19 days of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, faced with the potential of Israel’s complete destruction, must navigate overwhelming odds, a skeptical cabinet, and a complex relationship with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (Liev Schreiber), with millions of lives in the balance. Her tough leadership and compassion would ultimately decide the fate of her nation and leave her with a controversial legacy around the world”. Meir served as Israel’s prime minister between 1969 and 1974. She stood as a powerful global figure but is said to have held onto the guilt of those lost in the Yom Kippur War until her last days. “Golda” is set to premiere on August 25.

We have established that Italy loves Helen Mirren – apparently, they adore her husband, too. On Saturday, Taylor Hackford received a Life Achievement Award at the 50th Premi Internazionali Ennio Flaiano in Pescara, and Helen was on hand to support her hubby, famed for “An Officer and a Gentleman”, “White Nights”, “Dolores Claiborne”, “The Devil’s Advocate” and “Ray”. A couple of pictures from the ceremony have been added to the photo gallery. According to their website, the Flaiano International Awards, founded in 1973 by Edoardo Tiboni to honor Ennio Flaiano, consist of a series of events, exhibitions, conferences, shows in which concrete cultural motives converge – literary, theatrical, cinematic and television. Many thanks to Joan for the heads-up. Edit: Lots of additional photos and a couple of videos from the event have been added. Check the list below for updates.

Today, CNN Brazil has been the first news outlet to exclusively debut the international theatrical trailer for “Golda”, giving us more than just a glimpse of Helen Mirren’s stunning transformation into former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meier. The film, directed by Guy Nattiv and co-starring Camille Cottin and Liev Schreiber, will be released in US theaters on August 25, 2023. The trailer can be watched in the video archive. Screencaptures will be added once the trailer has been released without subtitles.