Published: February 17, 2007
Queen Mirren of the Oscars
By Alex Ben Block for Hollywood Today 
Mirren Plays a Queen But Is Still a Dame
Helen Mirren breaking records, taboos on way to Oscar Coronation
HOLLYWOOD, CA (rushprnews) - If Dame Helen Mirren, the odds-on favorite to win best actress at this year's Academy Awards, were really Queen of England, the 61-year-old Brit would be a lot more like Princess Di than the uptight leader of the Windsor clan she portrayed.
"I'd quite like to have a monarchy the way the Swedish people do, a royal family who go to the supermarket and you see them in the supermarket. I think that's how everyone should behave," Mirren said recently while promoting "The Queen". "I'd like to see movie stars in supermarkets as well."
She defines class but Mirren has been earthy and outspoken throughout her career. Once billed as Britain's sex siren, the classically trained thespian has shown a willingness to break star-mentality taboos against ageism, repeatedly appear nude (even at age 58 in "Calendar Girls"), speak out about causes, use salty language and push the limits of her art. The result has been a world-class body of work in movies, TV and on stage.
Now she appears to be a shoo-in to win her first Oscar after two previous nominations. And she will win, if history means anything. After four decades as a star, Mirren is having a historic year. No one has ever swept the awards season acting honors like Mirren and not won the Oscar.
Her unprecedented win streak over the past year for "Elizabeth I" and "The Queen" includes an Emmy, the Venice Film Festival, numerous critical plaudits from New York to L.A, and dual awards from the Golden Globes. She is only the third actress ever honored twice at the Screen Actor's Guild. She won BAFTA Awards and top acting honors from the Broadcast Critics, among many others.
Mirren's Oscar triumph will also break the age jinx. She would become one of the few female actors over age 50 and the first since Jessica Tandy in 1990's "Driving Miss Daisy" to win. The only other woman over 50 to win any acting Oscar in the past 15 years was Judy Dench, who is nominated again this year, but already all but conceded to Mirren when she announced she would not attend the awards ceremony later this month.
For her award-winning role, Mirren studied the real Queen before and during the making of the movie. She had a TV monitor in her trailer on the set and played tapes of the Queen all during production. She would randomly pick points to watch on the tape and sections to read in books about Elizabeth II.
Mirren says she studied the Queen as a person: "You take that iconic thing away from her," Mirren explains. "You try and separate her from that and you try and look in the person within that. I studied her psychologically and thoughtfully with sensitivity. I tried to imitate the tilt of her head but I never looked in the mirror and compared it to her photo."
She may play a queen but don't expect this Dame to change when she wins an Academy Award, which she once called, "the creme-de-la-creme of bulls**t."
"Actors are rogues and vagabonds," Mirren has said, "or they ought to be. I cannot stand it when they behave like solicitors... I'm a would-be rebel."
Read the rest of this interview in Hollywood Today Newsmagazine (www.hollywoodtoday.net).
Anne Howard is a writer and publicist. For more information about what Anne can do for your business, call her at 310-295-9578, anne@annehowardpublicist.com www.annehowardpublicist.com
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