On Thursday, Helen Mirren made the talkshow rounds in Los Angeles to promote the television premiere of “Catherine the Great” on HBO. She sat down with Sean Hayes, serving as a guest host, on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show”, and was interviewed at the Sirius XM Hollywood Studios. The full Ellen appearnce can be found in the video archive while pictures from both appearances have been added to the photo gallery.

Helen Mirren is featured in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly with an interview to promote the November release of “The Good Liar”: Helen Mirren is on the move. It’s late September, and the 74-year-old actress is calling from a train station business lounge in London, where she’s about to board the Eurostar to Paris. The night before, she arrived at the U.K. red carpet premiere of her miniseries Catherine the Great carried by appropriately regal footmen. Now she’s headed to France, where she’ll walk the runway (barefoot) at L’Oreal Paris’ 2019 fashion show. Just a few days prior, she was busy on the set of Fast & Furious 9, reprising her role as an elegant underworld mastermind, and she can next be seen in The Good Liar (in theaters Nov. 15), a twisty thriller about an unassuming widow (Mirren) taken in by a charming grifter (Ian McKellen). In other words, the Oscar winner is having a busy fall. For EW’s Fall Movie Preview issue, we caught up with Mirren to talk about The Good Liar, manservants, beauty, and the art of deceit — at least until her train departs.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: This movie takes multiple twists and turns. What about it hooked you?
HELEN MIRREN: It was a combination of my costar Ian McKellen and of course the director, Bill Condon. It’s a very interesting script, a wonderful, twisty thriller that I thought would be fun to do. It’s nice to do a film about old people that’s not about Alzheimer’s or cancer, if you know what I mean. [Laughs]

You and Ian McKellen have starred together on Broadway, but this is your first film together, which surprised me.
It is kind of surprising. I missed the whole Lord of the Rings thing, so it’s great to be in a real chunky, proper movie together.

Helen Mirren is no stranger to playing powerful female rulers operating in the world of men. Her latest endeavor, Catherine the Great, is no different as she brings the story of the extraordinary 18th century Russian Empress to life in the upcoming HBO limited series. At the New Yorker festival screening of the first episode, Mirren was joined by co-star Jason Clarke, who plays Catherine’s military leader and lover Grigory Potemkin, for a Q&A moderated by Juilliard Drama Director Evan Yionoulis. While the four-part series charts Catherine’s shaky beginnings as a ruthless but progressive empress following a coup that overthrew her late husband, it equally follows Catherine’s passionate love affair with Potemkin and its sweeping impact on the Russian empire. Read on for four takeaways about the series, including its inspirations and some surprising similarities.

Unlike Catherine the Great when she took power, Helen Mirren has Russian roots.

While Catherine herself was Prussian-born, making the scope of her rule even more extraordinary, Mirren is Russian on her father’s side. Her paternal grandfather was a member of the Russian Imperial Army and her original family name was “Mironoff.” “I was made aware of Russian history by my grandfather when I was 7 or 8, listening to him tell stories of the dacha and where the horses were kept,” Mirren recalls. “And he’d tell of a sleigh ride that took four days from Moscow to our family estates in Russia.” These tales gave Mirren an early start, but it wasn’t until later in life when she began reading Russian history that she became specifically fascinated with Catherine the Great.

Catherine’s real-life letters were a valuable source of research for Mirren and Clarke.

Catherine and Potemkin’s correspondence, which still exists, proved to be a treasure trove of information about an era predating photos and videos. The letters of love and yearning when Potemkin was away at war fighting the Turks provided a script for Mirren and Clarke’s characters to follow. “They were so intimate, so sweet, but at the same time you could see their jealousy and their angst — you saw the whole relationship beautifully expressed in those letters,” Mirren said. “You could see the way he made her laugh, and her sexual obsession with him, but it was true love.” “You see in what they wrote that she was the center of his universe,” Clarke agreed. “He just couldn’t get enough of this woman on all different levels. Initially she was his teacher and educator; then he was her attack dog or war man. Their relationship was incredible, like nothing I’d ever read.”

Earliert today, L’Oreal has hosted its annual runway show featuring an all-star cast of movie stars, singers and supermodels celebrating female empowerment on the sidelines of Paris Fashion Week. Cheryl Cole made a spectacular return to the runway for the L’Oreal Le Défilé show, wearing a black leather mini dress. She appeared alongside long-time brand ambassador Eva Longoria, actress Andie McDowell, model Doutzen Kroes and former Spice Girl Geri Horner. A barefoot and smiling Helen Mirren closed the show in a floral dress, running joyfully on stage. Celebrities including Naomi Campbell looked on from the audience of the show, held in the inner courtyard of the neoclassical Monnaie de Paris building. L’Oreal, an official sponsor of fashion week, collaborated with fashion houses such as Balmain, Elie Saab, Karl Lagerfeld and Giambattista Valli to dress its high-profile models. Pictures from the runway have been added to the photo gallery.

On Friday, Helen Mirren helped launch Graham Norton’s 26th season of his beloved show, promoting the UK release of “Catherine the Great” while sharing Graham’s red sofa with RuPaul, Jack Whitehall and Simon Reeve. In reference to Ru Paul’s UK premiere of “Ru Paul’s Drag Race”, Mirren joked that her husband Taylor Hackford’s sons Rio and Alexander were “slightly in shock” when she showed them around the popular gay entertainment venue the Vauxhall Tavern years ago. “There’s a real historic tradition of drag in London and I was growing up and first came to London on a Friday night there was often a drag show. There is a very famous drag pub – the Vauxhall Tavern – and when I first got together with my husband he had two young sons. I thought it would show these two young Californian boys something of the real London, so I took them to the Vauxhall Tavern.” She added: “These poor kids were slightly in shock but they certainly remember it as being very cool. It was cool, and I love my London.” The full episode can be watched below and in the video archive while screencaptures and promotional stills have been added to the photo gallery. By the way, this is Helen’s seventh appearance on The Graham Norton show – you can find all previous appearances in the video archive.

Earlier this evening, “Catherine the Great” celebrated its premiere in London, providing Helen Mirren with an entrance worthy of a Queen. A first batch of pictures have been added to the photo gallery, with more information to come. Edit: Over 100 additional images have been added to the photo gallery with many thanks to Joan for the contributions. Also, video footage from the premiere as well as a news segment by Entertainment Tonight Canada have been added to the video archive.

The two iconic Parisian brands are joining forces to introduce a makeup collection like no other. Karl Lagerfeld and L’Oreal Paris are pleased to announce an unprecedented collection of beauty products, featuring feminine shades with a sophisticated, rock-chic touch. Connected by their Parisian heritage, both Karl Lagerfeld and L’Oreal Paris share a vision based on elegance, style and relentless innovation. As Karl once said, “Tomorrow I could be the opposite of what I am today” — which is also the idea this collaboration invites women to explore. The striking campaign was inspired by Karl’s most iconic quotes. It features the inimitable Helen Mirren, Doutzen Kroes, Liya Kedebe, Ming Xi, Luma Grothe, Louise Bourgoin and Soo Joo Park. You can watch the collaboration video below and find the very stylish screencaptures in the photo gallery.

All episodes of the four-part Sky original drama Catherine The Great have been confirmed to air on Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW TV on Thursday 3 October, with a linear playout at 9pm. Starring Academy Award® winner Helen Mirren as the iconic Russian Empress alongside Jason Clarke, Gina McKee and Rory Kinnear, the series follows the latter years of the Catherine The Great’s reign and her passionate affair with Grigory Potemkin (Jason Clarke), amid a backdrop of scandal, intrigue and immense conflict. Unable to publicly marry, Catherine and Potemkin’s story is one of obsessive love for each other and their country as they develop a unique and devoted relationship, overcoming their adversaries to build Russia’s reputation as one of the great European powers of the 18th Century. Written by Nigel Williams (Elizabeth I) and directed by BAFTA and Emmy® Award-winning Philip Martin (The Crown), Catherine The Great is produced by Origin Pictures and New Pictures. It is the third commission from Sky and HBO’s global drama partnership, which to date has included The Young Pope and Chernobyl, which recently received 19 Emmy® Award nominations. Catherine The Great is one of many notable Sky commissions airing this year, as Sky continues to invest in original productions. Sky has recently committed to more than double its investment in original drama, comedy and documentary through Sky Studios, the commissioning and production arm of Sky. Sky Studios brings to screen unique stories from the very best talent in Europe and is the creative home of Sky’s award-winning and much-loved Sky originals. The complete press release can be read over at Sky.

Helen’s second installment in the Fast & Furious franchise – the Rock/Statham spin-off “Hobbs & Shaw” – will release theaters August 2. Her character’s name has received an add-on, the Shaw family matriarch is now known as Magdalene “Queeny” Shaw. There you go. Univeral Pictures is starting the film’s promotion this weekend with its Los Angeles premiere (which Helen didn’t attend) and a first batch of video clips, including an on-set interview with Helen and the b-roll, in which she is seen thanking director David Leitch after wrapping her scenes and demanding “more stunts” for the next time. As much as we know there will be a next time next year, when Helen will reprise her role in the ninth “Fast & Furious”. You can find both the b-roll and on-set interview below and in the video archive, as well as screencaptures in the photo gallery.

Courtesy Yahoo!: “The Talented Mr Ripley with OAPs” – That’s quite some pitch for a movie, but it’s basically the premise at the heart of The Good Liar, Warner Bros.’ upcoming adaptation of the best-selling thriller by Nicholas Searle. As you can see in the newly-launched first trailer (watch it below), it stars Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Helen Mirren, the former an octogenarian conman called Roy who meets wealthy widow Betty (Mirren) on a dating website and sets about stealing her nest egg. And as director Bill Condon (Beauty and the Beast) explains, it includes a cinema first. “They’d never worked together in the movies before,” he says of the two legends. “I’d seen them on stage together about 15 years or longer ago [it was actually 2002 in Strindberg’s Dance of Death]. And [this movie] felt like an opportunity to bring an ideal pairing to the screen.” “[The film] definitely plays off the lifetime iconography we have for these two great actors.” Of course Condon, who worked with McKellen on his breakthrough as director Gods and Monsters (1998) and again in 2015’s Mr. Holmes, knows the actor’s process well, but notes Mirren’s is completely different. “Ian is all rehearsal and talk and talk and talk,” he explains. “Helen likes a little bit of that and then for her it’s about the magic of what happens in the moment. She really likes to keep it spontaneous.”. The complete article can be read over at Yahoo! The film’s poster, as well as new stills and an on-set picture, have been added to the photo gallery.