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Oscar winner talks about his Russian-born, Oscar-winning role of the queen, why she never had children, and his two latest movies

"I learned early in life," Helen Mirren told me to tea at the Dorchester Hotel, "we are both people. And one of them is not one of us will ever know. You, Tim, for example, you never know how you are perceived. What are my ideas on how they sit and cheeks or hair or something. You never know. "

is true. And I must admit, sitting there, suddenly conscious of my hair - my cheeks? - I am very pleased to continue this path. Mirren is open and warm as a respondent, but you sense all the time they raise their little naive list of questions, which is effortless thanks to you. She seems very serious course of self-awareness, but also an understanding of the extinction of human motivation in general. After a lifetime of supporting the eyes of men, for better or for worse, there is little she knows nothing about the future.

"interim", he continues, "is much more to do with accepting the other person and agree with her. You can not control how others see you and think of you. But you must be comfortable with that. "

The previous night, found myself watching the video on YouTube compulsive Mirren interviewed by Michael Parkinson in 1975. If I had to give one piece of material that conveys the idea of ??the sexual politics of the 70s, after the interview in seven minutes which took a series of

Life on Mars

to dramatize. Mirren has Parkinson's disease as "sluttishly erotic." It starts with the question: "You are, quote, a" serious actress ", which is what might be described as his team keeps in this research?" Mirren, then 30, and the star of the CBC, toys a long boom that has bought with her on the set and suddenly makes the student Parky leer. "How dare you?" murmurs. And then: "Describe in detail what you mean by my team."

In person, Mirren offers only glimpses of the power that can draw on the screen. Sitting quietly in Dorchester, with ankles crossed wisely, which seems both to his age - 66 - and dramatically, not your age. I wonder what he's doing now that the old car on Parky?

"I saw him recently on the Internet," she said. "I did not know was there. And the truth is that I was very proud of myself. He was the first talk-sighted what he had done. I was very nervous. I held the pen. And I must say I thought it handles well. I've always been an instinctive feminist without being too political, just my feelings about myself. Parkinson, of course, do not understand at all. " seemed, I say, very angry with the guy who was chosen. His condition was normal at the time?

"I think that sexism in the theater," she says, "but it was a norm of everyday life. I felt insulted. But he was also my worst enemy to some. As was the girlie thing and also what I call the erotic as art, had a relationship with a photographer [James Wedge] explored and I have never seen a conflict in matters of personal dignity seems a thing .. other than myself. And it's a matter of taste. Today, I still can not explain why a thing is vulgar and what is not, but I know for sure who is who. "

Mirren became famous early in his film career seemingly relaxed their attitude to nudity. This is the definition of "other self" was with her, something of their pleasure. His "team" as Parky would have done, you still have a life, at least in some eyes. Key "Helen Mirren" into Google and the search is expected to arrive in "Helen Mirren Bikini," "hot Helen Mirren," "Helen Mirren best body" and "Helen Mirren tattoo." Few actresses have already sent your mix of charm and away for so long. She knows her way around all aspects of this resource and all uses of it in his favor on the screen and stage. As Stephen Frears, said her casting as the Queen: "I thought it was essential to have someone who gets nervous ..."

talk more about how self-knowledge is only a small part of who we are, Mirren maintains suggest you intrigued by how rarely drove the car feels like it at all. It can not really see his movies, "when there are seven or 10 years," he said, because the disjunction between his own perception and the film version is amplified by the then less shocking. "If I look in

Age of consent

, with James Mason, the first film I did, a little, 'Wow, is that funny fat girl Hairy? "It's a different person. Every cell in your body is different. It's really not at all."

One way is to read Mirren distinguished career as a determined and brilliant rise to another type of nudity. Although his body still has its fans, its emotional honesty have long eclipsed. He bared as Jane Tennison in the series of seven Prime Suspect without having to make a point. As the queen, her tweed, only served to highlight the very frank statement of the person inside.

two films coming to peel the layers.

debt

, a very watchable thriller directed by John Madden (

Shakespeare in Love ), put the Mossad agent forced to confront the reality of his past as a Nazi hunter. In

Door , based on the novel by Magda Szabó brilliant, playing a maid in Hungary to resume the life of a writer.

debt already opened in the states of enthusiastic comments. Madden worked with Helen Mirren earlier in the Series 4

Prime Suspect

and liked the idea of ??doing it again. "Structurally," she said, "the film was a difficult thing to achieve. However, John is like Hitchcock in which you are aware of that has all the pace and timing and tone built in his mind for each scene before he began to shoot. "

debt

is a new version of an Israeli film that Mirren has decided to go after she took the role. "I saw with concern, because I really want to get to something fresh and free. But I was glad I saw it because it taught me the amount of feeling that the character has to live. The document was so full of import and passion and seriousness that I could not be a British subject, cool or ironic; .. had to be another type of emotional register " young Mirren in the film itself is very well done, Jessica Chastain, today's woman to watch in Hollywood. The links between the two films as possible. Chastain is the young officer of the Mossad in the Cold War, Berlin, part of a group sent to capture a concentration camp torturer who now works as a gynecologist.

The removal operation later became a heroic legend in Israel, but as the film unfolds and becomes more entrenched in the history of Mirren, we realize that history n ' is not reliable. Mirren said she did not overlap with Chastain on the set, but "in a sense created the character that I could navigate." She was younger, he says, a lot of work to study their characteristics, so the transition between the two seems more simple. "It was good to point out things about me that I completely ignored," says Helen Mirren. "And I was not as beautiful as it is now. So lucky at this level, too." The film culminates in an amazing fight scene between Mirren and his nemesis in a nursing home, which took two days to film. Mirren keeps coming back for more, but it is characteristic modest on stage: "I call the fight in geriatrics," he said. "We were both struggling to take off more than anything ..."

This conclusion of the film is set in Russia, Mirren spoke in Russian, which makes a return to the roots of all kinds. His grandfather, an officer in the tsarist army, became a reluctant emigrated to England after being stranded in London during the Revolution, during a mission to buy arms. Later the family lived with Mirren in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex until his death in 1955, telling stories of family property and Tolstoy's life was lost. As a child, Helen was named Ilyena, but once his father had died of his father anglicized their names. The Mironov became Mirren. Do you feel as you age, and his choice of roles, I wonder, the feeling that his Russian roots are reasserting themselves?

It suggests that what he does, sort of. "Working on these two films -

debt

and Door

- is certainly interesting to before," says she said. "In a sense, it's scary. To Door , costumes people came to me when I was at Venice Film Festival. I was in this magnificent Palace .. quarter and came with all the clothes I put on Hungarian peasant and looked in the mirror and I thought it looked so just any reason, was terribly credible: I like a peasant roots in Eastern Europe just blasting. through. "

you feel something inside Russian-Ness?

"It's hard to take what is inside," he said. "My father was eager to learn. I wanted a British family and not live in the past that his father had done. But however much I tried, my father was Russian in his heart. He spoke Russian, but he did not want a. And of course, did not. He was a socialist. "

Who do you think you are ? Moments guys. "