AARP The Magazine is giving us an early Christmas present with a stunning cover story on Helen Mirren’s return to television with “1923”. The full article can be read on their website. An excerpt can be found below, alongside a fantastic video interview from the shoot. It’s the tail end of a sun-sparkled afternoon in Butte, Montana, and here I am in a windowless basement bar with — if you’ll excuse the expression — this dame I met a few minutes before. I was standing on the street outside the Miner’s Hotel, minding my own, when she pulled up in her car, looking a bit tiny behind the wheel. Then she whipped into this swift, effortless U-turn, settling without a hitch, nice and tight to the sidewalk. Oddly impressive. She pretty much jumped out of the car, and she seemed just a shade invigorated. “It’s extraordinary!” she told me later. “There’s no traffic! You can do a U-turn here in the middle of the road.” This dame, her name is Helen. Dame Helen Mirren. We shook hands right there on the street.

It’s still some weeks until the Merry season, but Helen Mirren turns out to be a fitting testimonial for this year’s Christmas themed magazine covers. Both the British Woman’s Weekly and the Australian Mindfood have put Mirren on their Christmas covers. There’s also a new cover from the Hungarian Nok Lapjá and and article in the British Woman & Home (with many thanks to Joan for the contribution). Enjoy the new additions.

Consequence TV has a lenghty profile and interview with Helen Mirren for the recent premiere of “Documentary Now”: It’s been five months since I spoke with Helen Mirren about hosting the IFC spoof series Documentary Now!, and I still haven’t gotten over her saying that she doesn’t think she’s funny. “I’m never comfortable with comedy,” she says, to be exact. “I’m so out of my depth with comedy. The only way I can deal with it is to be as serious as I possibly can be, if you know what I mean. I think if I was ever a part of a comedy team, I would definitely be the straight man. I wouldn’t be the funny one. I would be the one to set the joke up.” It’s an opinion that comes from her deep respect for the genre: “I think much too seriously so I love watching comedy. I’m very admiring, especially on film, comedy is very difficult. I’m very admiring of people who do comedy well on film. I think it’s easier to do it live because film is so technical to maintain the timing and the lightness of improvisational quality on film, it’s very difficult. But no, I’m not very good at comedy.” The complete interview can be read here.

Helen Mirren covers this week’s Sunday Life supplement of The Sydney Morning Herald. The interview, focusing on her fashion choices, can be read online in its entirity. These days, the word “influencer” gets bandied around a lot, a catch-all term for anyone trying to get noticed on social media. But if you want to see a real influencer, take one look at Helen Mirren, who at 77 has more fashion- and beauty-industry clout than most young Insta stars could ever dream of. Sitting across from me via a screen – Helen is in Cannes, I’m in London – wearing a slim-cut, round-neck green dress with her hair slicked back in a modern ponytail, she looks every inch an idol. The actor has the sort of presence and confidence that is alluring in anyone, whether 17 or 70.

I don’t have the easiest shape to deal with. I’m not tall or slim, I’m curvy and short, so only certain things look good and some very edgy things just don’t work. And that’s fine. There are people whose style I love but wouldn’t necessarily try to emulate because everyone’s different. I love Helena Bonham Carter’s fashion sense, and how Kristen Stewart dresses. Tilda Swinton and Cate Blanchett have great style, too. They’re all women who really push the boat out – and that’s something I admire. (Helen Mirren, The Sydney Morning Herald, August 07, 2022)

Accompanying her appearance on The South Bank Show next Wednesday (27th July), Helen Mirren sat down with the series’ host Melvyn Bragg for an interview in this week’s Radio Times magazine as the latest issue’s cover star. In the interview, the pair talk about insecurities, Mirren’s Russian aristocratic heritage and what she really thinks of the Queen having played her in 2006. As part of the conversation, Mirren reveals that she wrote to the monarch before taking part in The Queen. She says: “I realised we were investigating a profoundly painful part of her life, so I wrote to her. How do you write to your queen? Was it Madam, or Your Highness, or Your Majesty? I said, ‘We are doing this film. We are investigating a very difficult time in your life. I hope it’s not too awful for you.’ “I can’t remember how I put it. I just said that in my research I found myself with a growing respect for her, and I just wanted to say that. She didn’t write back, of course, but her secretary did. You know, ‘Yours sincerely, da di da di da,’ on behalf of the Queen. I was very relieved subsequently that I had written that letter.”