TORONTO – Helen Mirren suspects television is responsible for her current celebrity.
“The fact people finally recognize me after 30 years in the business is due largely to Prime Suspect,” says Mirren. “That I have a little clout in Hollywood is also due to my Oscar nomination for The Madness Of King George.” In the British series Prime Suspect, Mirren plays chief inspector Jane Tennison, a tough, determined, emotionally-scarred senior London police detective. She was meant to play the character one time in a two-part miniseries. When Prime Suspect aired in America in 1992, it drew more than 14 million viewers and had to be re-telecast three additional times.
Mirren, 50, has since filmed three more Prime Suspect miniseries. The fourth will air this spring. Last fall, she won an Emmy for her portrayal of Tennison in Prime Suspect 3. “It was the kind of role usually written for a man, but they decided to give it to a woman instead, which is how things should be,” says Mirren, in her forthright manner. Mirren admits she owes a great deal to the success of Prime Suspect. On the strength of her current popularity, she was able to convince Castle Rock Pictures to produce Some Mother’s Son, a film project she had been shopping around Hollywood for three years.
In Some Mother’s Son, Mirren plays an Irish mother who tries to stop the 1981 hunger strike that threatens to claim the lives of 21 Irish revolutionaries serving time in a British prison. Son was written and directed by Terry George, who co-wrote In The Name Of The Father. “In Terry’s original script, my character sympathized more with the IRA. She was supposed to learn through her experiences how great the IRA is,” recalls Mirren. “I wanted her to be a neutral person trying to keep her family alive. “I saw a news clip on the TV once of a Sarajevo woman running through a bombed-out field to get a bucket of water for her family. That’s who I wanted my character to be. I didn’t want her to be a spokesperson for either faction in Ireland.” Good intentions aside, Mirren’s participation in Some Mother’s Son backfired.
She was scheduled to appear on Britain’s top TV lottery show, but the producers cancelled her appearance at the last moment because they considered the film pro-IRA. Mirren says her Irish connection goes back to the 1980s Arthurian epic Excalibur, in which she played Guinevere. “It was an important film for me in many ways. I fell in love with Ireland and I fell in love with a wonderful Irishman. Mirren met actor Liam Neeson and the two became lovers for almost a decade. They are still great friends. “It was Liam who sent me the script for Some Mother’s Son. He was hoping that there was some way we could be in it together, but then he got Michael Collins and left the project with me.”
Mirren is currently living with American director Taylor Hackford, whom she met in 1984 when he directed her and Mikhail Baryshnikov in White Nights. “When it comes to relationships and marriage, I’ve always been a little unconventional. It’s not that I don’t believe in marriage. It’s that I don’t believe in divorce. “I couldn’t possibly commit myself 100% to someone else. Taylor and I have a strong relationship which allows each of us to pursue our separate careers. He’s a wonderful life partner.” Hackford is currently directing Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves in The Devil’s Advocate.
“I read the script carefully as I do each project Taylor accepts, but there was nothing in it that appealed to me or suited me particularly. It’s a great movie, but no great part for me.” Instead, she has chosen to star opposite Albert Brooks and James Spader in the new Sidney Lumet film Critical Care. Mirren was born Ilynea Lydia Mironoff, the daughter of an English mother and a Russian father. “My family was aristocratic. My father came to England to make an arms deal. World politics cut him off from his family and he had to create a whole new life in England.”
Mirren warns that people shouldn’t confuse her with the stately and staid characters she often plays. “I’ve always been a bit of a wild thing and have the scars to prove it.” One such scar is the tattoo between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand. “It got there when I was in my 20s. I was visiting this Native American reservation in Minnesota. I got very drunk on brandy and woke up with it the next day. I haven’t had it removed because it’s a reminder that I was sometimes a bad girl in my past.”