Helen Mirren. Courtesan of Tomorrow, Revolutionary of Today and Actress Extraordinary. An exclusive interview by David Frost. The story so far: “We would like you to do an interview for us,” said the Editor. She was very persuasive. I said “yes” and picked a girl whom I had never met but whose cast of mind as glimpsed in her public utterances had intrigued me almost as much as her performances for the Royal Shakespeare and in Strindberg’s Miss Julie, Ken Russell’s Savage Messiah and Lindsay Anderson’s O Lucky Man. Of course, when the Interviewer commutes between London and New York and the Interviewee is based in Paris with Peter Brook’s International Centre for Experimental Theatre and has just returned from a four month tour of Africa, meeting is none too easy. But eventually while I was on a trip to Paris and Helen was back at home base, the meeting was achieved. Helen Mirren breezed into my lounge at the Hotel Lancaster and her first line was something of a surprise. “Do you mind if I use your bath? The place where I am staying doesn’t have one and I haven’t had a bath in ages.” It was a gloriously unorthodox opening to an interview. Though Helen did not think for a moment that she was unorthodox.

HM: Unorthodox? According to whose orthodoxy? Not according to my orthodoxy at all. According to that I’m strict.
DF: How are you strict?
HM: Well I make New Year’s resolutions.
DF: This year’s were…
HM: How am I strict? Well, let’s see….
DF: Do you mean you know exactly where you’re going and what you’re doing?
HM: No, I’ve no idea where I’m going or what I’m going to be doing whatsoever…
DF: Six months from now…
HM: I don’t even have an idea where I’m going to be sleeping tomorrow night yet again. I always seem to be in that state, not knowing where I’m going to be sleeping.
DF: Why is that?
HM: Well, because, terribly complicated, it’s always complicated that sort of thing, you’re always like that or you’re not and the reasons for it never count, there are always very good reasons for it, but things like that happen to you or they don’t. I’d say I believe in fate more than anything which is why I just close my eyes and let go and see what happens.
DF: I said to Noel Coward once…
HM: Oh, name dropper…!
DF: At what age did you know you were going to be a star and he said…”Two”.
HM: I knew I was going to be a star… thought I was going to be a star when I was thirteen.
DF: At thirteen, what happened at thirteen?
HM: I just realised I was a very good actress.
DF: How though, where did you act at thirteen?
HM: At school… I did a brilliant performance at school.
DF: What of?
HM: Ophelia.
DF: But you had an upbringing that was like mine, didn’t you? An upbringing that was completely non-theatrical… your family weren’t….
HM: No, not at all. My Mum’s pretty theatrical but not on the stage.
DF: She’s theatrical in real life?
HM: She’s very dramatic. She’s not theatrical, she’s dramatic and has a true, inbred drama about her.
DF: What do you mean by true drama?
HM: Well, she can influence the atmosphere of things around her.
DF: You’d sense it if you were in a room with her?
HM: Oh yes, you’d sense it if you were just over the telephone. She is very powerful, my mother.

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