Dame Helen Mirren Discusses "The Queen"

Page 2

The Relationship Between the Queen and Prince Philip: “I did a lot of research about that,” explained Dame Helen Mirren, “and that relationship is fascinating. Elizabeth was about 16 when she fell in love with Philip, and she was a young 16. She said, ‘That's the guy I want.’ Everyone in the palace and in her family disapproved of that match strongly. They didn't want her to marry him. He was a bit like Diana when he was young. He was a bit cool and trendy and hip and wild and would drive up to the palace in an open-top sports car. He was a dispossessed prince. He had no money at all. But she stuck to her guns and said, ‘That's the guy that I want.’ They even took her away on a long world tour to encourage her to forget him and she wouldn't forget him. And when she got back she said, ‘That's the guy I want to marry.’ So she did marry him and he was quite, I suspect, a macho kind of guy, quite testosterone-driven, strong and opinionated and all of those things, and then she became queen and then he had to stay in second place.

He wanted her, which is interesting, and Mountbatten, his uncle, was encouraging the Queen to change her name to his name, and if she'd done that, he would have become king and she would have become his consort, but she refused. She said, ‘I'm the Queen and you're not going to be the King. You're going to be my consort.’ And I think that made life very difficult for them in the early stage of their marriage. When they were trying to sort out how to live together it was very difficult, but they got through it and I think they now have a very solid relationship. I think they're good friends now. I think they support and rely on each other, and they enjoy the same hobbies. They found a way of living together. He has managed to deal with being three steps behind the Queen his whole life. It's difficult for a man. They found a way of living together, which I think is admirable and quite sweet.”

Adding a Little Humor to a Very Serious Film: “I think you can’t do the story without a laugh or a smile coming off your face, because as people are as serious as they are and gravitas – there’s something intrinsically funny about them as well. They live in this peculiar world that we - none of us - can comprehend. I loved the delicacy of the humor in the piece. It’s never a joke, it’s always a laugh that comes naturally after a situation.”

Reaction from the Royal Family: Mirren hasn’t heard anything from the Royal Family. “No, and I don't think we ever will. It’s dangerous for them to either say we think it's wonderful or we hate it because they're not film critics. They would be very careful to [not] say or do something that could be used by the distributors of the film. They'll be completely above it.”

As for Prime Minister Tony Blair’s camp, Mirren says that’s another issue. “I don't know. Maybe Peter Morgan [the writer] or Stephen [Frears, the director] will know. Usually, that sort of information filters down over a couple of years. Eventually, you get the word one way or another. It's received a huge amount of attention in England, this film, in terms of the print press. Everywhere you looked for a couple of weeks you couldn't get away from it. Obviously, the profile is really, really high. One knows that surely they couldn't resist looking at it at least.”

The News of Diana, Princess of Wales’ Death: Mirren recalls she was in America when the news broke Diana had been killed in a car crash in Paris. Mirren says she remembers feeling relieved she wasn’t in Britain at that time. “What happened there was disturbing,” said Mirren. “The public reaction was weird to me.”

Mirren’s not talking about an over-reaction to the death but how the public conducted themselves during that time. “It all became about them, it became about them. They appeared it was about her, but it wasn’t about her, it was about them. It was weird, I don’t know; I was really glad not to be there. And it was kind of a circus, like the carnival coming to town, and it was a carnival of death, and a sort of carnival of grief – but a carnival, none the less.”

Continued on Page 3