According to The Hollywood Reporter, Helen Mirren’s ardent feminism came to the fore Thursday night when the Oscar-winning actress was asked during a keynote conversation in Toronto what she looked forward to beyond the “horrible situation” of the current Israel-Hamas war. “Gosh, that’s an incredibly difficult question, because you don’t want to be naïve and silly. Of course one hopes for peace,” Mirren told the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center during an appearance at its 2023 Spirit of Hope Benefit. Praised as a steadfast ally in the fight against anti-Semitism by the human rights organization after she received their 2023 Humanitarian Award, Mirren’s informal conversation was overshadowed by events in the Middle East after Israel declared war on the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza after its Oct. 7 surprise attack on southern Israel. Asked at one point during the keynote what frightens her today, Mirren answered without pause: “Oh, October the seventh. That scares me the most, and whatever it is in humanity that makes people able to do that, whatever it is that pushes them to commit those acts, whatever brainwashing, whatever it is that can turn peoples’ minds to those actions.” Pointing to other grave human atrocities in history, she referenced the Holocaust during the Second World War and America’s traumatic history of lynching African-American men to terrorize their communities. “Lynchings were very prevalent. And I just saw recently postcards of an audience at a lynching, that they’d send to each other, as sort of, ‘what fun we had the other night at the lynching.’ What it is in us, human beings? Is it fundamental to us? It is so much a part of our nature as all the goodness we have,” Mirren additionally asked during the Toronto gala. Mirren also addressed the controversy over a non-Jew like herself being cast to play the Israeli leader. “It’s a legitimate discussion. The whole idea of casting has really been blown out of the water recently, and I applaud that. It’s completely right,” she said. At the same time, Mirren said she would not have taken the part of Golda Meir if the biopic itself had not been directed by an Israeli, Nattiv. She added, “Without that authentic voice, I just wouldn’t have done (the role) with someone else.” Edit: Pictures have been added to the photo gallery.

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