(This article was translated from its Italian original) Hi sweetie!». Today Helen Mirren is in a good mood, a big smile unfolds under the bon ton headband that frames her face. That familiar face as well as her voice: a kind of special optical-sonic effect that only great movie stars are able to create, as if having seen and heard them for years in films magically transformed us into relatives. It’s just an illusion, obviously: here is one in front of us that has permanently resided in the Hollywood Olympus for a few decades and is destined to end up in the history books of cinema. Seventy-eight years of which 56 were spent making films, winning awards (above all, the Oscar for The Queen in 2007), being venerated by stylists and beauty brands and, recently, also fighting against ageism, the discrimination that affects people who are no longer young, armed with ever-sharp words and his famous gray hair without dye. She is English with noble Russian origins (her paternal grandfather was an aristocratic colonel in the tsarist army), twenty years ago she also received the title of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. But Dame Helen Mirren is also a bit Italian, as we know: she spends long periods in her farm in Salento, where two years ago she shot that masterpiece of humor which was the Vacinada video with Checco Zalone during the pandemic, to raise awareness among Italians to vaccines.

Today you are here to talk about Wonder: White Bird, which is the spin-off of Wonder, the graphic novel that started the Choose Kindness movement. In the film, Helen Mirren plays a woman who, to redeem her bully nephew, tells him the story of her childhood, how as a young Jewish girl in Nazi-occupied France she was hidden and protected by a classmate, and was literally saved by an act of kindness.

The film is a lesson in the power of kindness: is this the true heroism of today?
Yes, I think yes. I have always believed that kindness makes the world go round. Society pushes us to be competitive, we have to fight for resources and everything, and all these pressures induce aggressive behavior. But being kind gives balance to our lives, there is nothing more pleasant, it is written in our DNA.

Do you define yourself as a kind person?
Kindness is an incredibly important value for me. I try to be kind even if vanity, self-love, greed, insecurity and laziness often hinder this aspiration, and I’m very sorry.

Wonder: White Bird comes out at a time when Israel is at war with Hamas, and when anti-Semitism is growing around the world. What relationship does it have with Israel?
A relationship that is not very deep but certainly long-lasting. I went there for the first time in the late 1960s with my boyfriend at the time who was Jewish, we worked for a while on a kibbutz and then hitchhiked across the country. From that moment on I have always felt connected to Israel, not from a religious point of view because I am Jewish, but I have always found it to be an extremely interesting place, despite all the contradictions it brings with it. However, I believe in the good of Israel and in the good people of Israel and I hope that in the end they will prevail.

This year you also played former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the film Golda.
Yes, I found myself in several projects that told the story of the Jews. I think there’s a reason. I understood what the Holocaust was only when I started reading about it, at around 14 years old, because in the immediate post-war period there wasn’t much talk about it, the horror was so vast and the trauma of the survivors was too recent. But that discovery was a blow to my sense of kindness and humanity, and from that moment on I felt that it was something we should never forget: if human beings are capable of such atrocities we all have a duty to remember it.

Wonder: White Bird is a film with a clear message.
I hope that there are many young people in the audience and that they will think about their behavior, their actions, the cruelty in which they may have participated. And they will realize how terribly wrong it is. And how the end of that journey can be so devastating, so extreme. So I hope this from White Bird is a lesson that people will learn. But there is also courage. I recently happened to read an article about an incredible story: an entire village in France, and I mean every single person in that village, had hidden someone – pilots or soldiers or Jews – at the risk of being discovered and then killed. It’s a courage that is very difficult to understand today, isn’t it? We move further and further away from it. So, yes, it is essential to learn courage and kindness.

What reflections do you have today on the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip?
I read many history books and it seems clear to me that horror has always been a constant in the human condition. What was Alexander the Great great for? For killing millions of innocents? And Stalin? I grew up in England with the troubles (the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, ed.) and I saw how these pseudo-racial conflicts can last indefinitely, unless truly excellent leaders are found. I believe, and perhaps I’m wrong, that if there were more women in politics things would be different. You know, seeing these summits with heads of state that are almost always all men makes me angry, frustrates and saddens me. I would like to see parties made up of half women, in every part of the world.

What do you think women at the top would bring?
Maybe kindness. It is true that women are also capable of hatred and revenge, but the reality is that 90 percent of violence in the world is committed by men. And this is an undeniable truth.

We in Italy have a woman at the head of the government. Do you, who have a home in our country, follow it? What do you think of Giorgia Meloni?
I don’t want to go into the specifics of Italian politics, but I think that Giorgia Meloni is a surprise for everyone, both on the right and on the left. As for me, politically I tend more towards the right, but in the end I think that if you find a great politician, right and left are categories that matter little: what matters is the ability to achieve things and obtain consensus.

But how did it happen that she came from Hollywood to Puglia to become a farmer?
Oh, it’s a long story. My husband and I had a house in France but we loved Italy very much, he wanted a place in your country too. We discovered Salento, where we immediately felt at home and happy. We bought a farm, but instead of planting olive trees, we focused on pomegranate plants. But let me tell you something important.

Please.
Today Salento suffers from this cataclysmic plague of xylella (the bacterium that affected millions of olive trees in Puglia, ed.), which was tragically neglected during Covid and which thus continued its terrible march. Now many of Fasano’s monumental trees are threatened: if Italy loses this heritage, it will be like losing the Colosseum.

In Puglia you met Checco Zalone: are you friends?
I love Luca very much, he is a nice person and a great friend, I care a lot about our friendship.

How did you meet?
Oh, we don’t have time now, darling, but I can tell you that I enjoy being with him and his family. And I love when we go out to eat pizza together.