No regrets having missed Helen Mirren

NEW YORK — I almost banged my head on the wall of Room 2129 of Radisson Hotel (Lexington at 48th Street) when I checked in at past 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 3, from a 22-hour Cathay Pacific flight from Manila and Hong Kong (with an hour-long stopover to change planes), and learned that I missed Helen Mirren who with John Malkovich were interviewed by the “international press” earlier that morning. Mirren and Malkovich are co-starring with Bruce Willis (in his usual Die Hard derring-do) in RED (as in Retired, Extremely Dangerous) which is released by Pioneer Films nationwide starting today (simultaneous with the US playdate).

I’ve been a fan of Mirren’s since I saw her as Caesonia in Caligula, the controversial 1979 “art-porno” financed by Penthouse and also featured such esteemed actors as Peter O’Toole, Malcolm McDowell and John Gielgud. When Floy Quintos, head writer and creative director of Startalk, learned that I was attending the RED junket, his eyes widened, “I love her in Caligula; she’s daring in it!” But not daring enough to, like the supporting cast, engage in an almost non-stop orgy (that will make your eyes pop out in pleasant shock, considering that it’s an “art” film), showing male and female private parts in extreme close-up.

I became an even bigger fan of Mirren’s after I saw her sterling performance as Elizabeth II in The Queen (for which she won a 2007 Best Actress Oscar and nominations from Golden Globe, BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild) where she portrayed a carbon-copy of the Queen of England, from the slightest hand gesture to the way she adjusts her crown. Of course, Mirren, who launched her career in London at the National Youth Theater playing Cleopatra, is just as memorable in her other films, among them White Nights (1985), The Tempest, The Last Station and Brighton Rock (a remake of the 1947 classic, adapted from the Graham Greene novel). Mirren became a Dame of the British Empire in 2003.

But I made it night of the same day to the third preview of RED at a screening room 15 blocks away from the hotel, a stone’s throw from Four Seasons (Park Avenue) where the print and TV interviews for the RED stars were being conducted. In the movie based on the DC Comics cult-favorite graphic novel, and directed by Robert Schwentke from a screenplay by Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber, Mirren plays Victoria, a retired British operative now running an upscale bed-and-breakfast recruited by Willis as a retired CIA agent who reassembles his old team against a hi-tech hit squad out to kill him.

RED also stars the venerable Morgan Freeman (more on him in Conversations with Ricky Lo on Sunday, Oct. 17), New Zealander Karl Urban (of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King) and Mary Louise Parker (the US TV hits Weeds, Angels in America and The West Wing; the films, among others, Fried Green Tomatoes, The Client and The Spiderwick Chronicles) as the woman Bruce’s character Frank Moses deeply cares for.

In her characteristic classy style, Mirren portrays Victoria with understated elegance. In one scene where Freeman introduces Mirren to Parker, saying, “Victoria was the best asset in the business, a true artist with a PSG’,” Parker wonders, “What does that mean?” Replying matter-of-factly with casual cool, Mirren smiles, “I kill people, dear!,” as if killing people were as easy and as commonplace as swathing a pesky fly. Very Helen Mirren!

Back in my room, I would learn from the production notes distributed during the screening that Mirren’s inspiration for her character came from someone not generally associated with espionage and assassins --- yes, Martha Stewart, the “decorating doyenne and global brand businesswoman” who served time in prison for “inside trading” a few years ago.

“Yes,” Mirren (for whom the part was written) admitted, “she was indeed my inspiration even down to the hair, my Martha Stewart hair. She’s obviously not a retired assassin but whatever Martha Stewart does, she does it really, really well. She’s a perfectionist and I love her combination of feminine softness and an incredible strength of efficiency and practicality. I hope she won’t be insulted by this characterization because I am a big, big fan of hers.”

I enjoyed the movie so much, especially the scenes in which Mirren appears, that I didn’t have any regrets missing her at the interviews --- and I didn’t have to bang my head on the wall.

In the movie, the theme of “the old guard versus the new wave” of CIA operative is personified in the relationship between the older, world-weary Frank Moses and the younger, hi-tech hit man William Cooper, the character played by Urban.

“Cooper is a young, relatively new CIA hit man who was trained with all the state-of-the-art techniques and technology,” said Urban during the next day’s one-on-two (he sat in tandem with Bruce Willis). “My research included reading books and articles written by former CIA field officer Robert ‘Bob’ Baer who served as a consultant to the film. One day, Cooper is given a ‘lethal finding’ which is essentially a direction by his superior to assassinate Frank Moses. It is a task that proves to be a little more difficult than Cooper anticipated because he underestimates Frank’s ability purely based in Frank’s age. Even though Cooper is aided by satellite-tracking and all the other ultra-modern CIA toys, Frank has 30-plus years of in-the-tranches intelligence experience which makes for some pretty interesting situations between the two men.”

Urban added that the role was interesting to him because Cooper has a wife and family.

“That’s something that Frank and his contemporaries could never have back in the old days,” said Urban who shuttles between New Zealand and California with his wife and their two children. “That element of being a family man juxtaposed against being a cold-hearted killer is a really nice character arc to get to play.”

And how was working with Willis?

“It was a great time,” said Urban. “We had a lot of fun, we had to do some pretty physical work in this film, including a fight scene which was a big undertaking. We discussed a lot about how we wanted it to come out. There’s a lot of comedy in this film, so it’s a very funny film. But that fight very much represents what’s going on. We wanted to put something out there that was pretty real and made an impact.”

Malkovich on Parker as quoted in the production notes: “Mary Louise and I worked together years ago on a film called The Portrait of a Lady and I very much liked her. She’s extremely talented, very quirky…very fun to watch. She makes very interesting choices as an actor and is immensely receptive and perceptive about what’s going on around her with respect to the other actors.”

Said Parker, “I am usually attracted to projects with less movement and less artillery,” referring to her RED role as Sarah who is described as “a woman whose only real action in life comes from the romance novels that take her away from her solitary job in a bureaucratic cubicle.”

Here are more excerpts from my interview with Parker (who sat in tandem with Freeman):

How was working with Bruce Willis?

“First is, he’s tops in this genre, he is the best at it. If you’re gonna do this kind of movie, he’s the best person to do it with really and everyone I think would love to be in the movie with him.”

RED is so different from your previous work in theater. Were the preparations for this movie different from those for your past works?

“Not so much. I mean, every preparation for every part is different but I didn’t do a lot of physical stuff, it wasn’t like I was going to do kickboxing. I didn’t have that kind of part so I didn’t do any of that kind of thing.”

The movie is exciting from beginning to end, but which part did you find particularly exciting?

“I like the part in the beginning where I was talking through the tape. It was really fun for me and I don’t know why but I like getting seen wherever I wanted behind the tape and that was really the fun part for me.”

I presume that you have watched a lot of Bruce Willis movies before this one.

“Not really so much but I knew that he comes with a certain persona right away. That part of him was true. On screen, he’s wildly appealing and everything. In person, he’s really so sweet and such a real family man, actually.”

What did you discover about Bruce that the public doesn’t know yet, especially how he is behind the camera?

“He’s really devoted to his family and the way he talks about his wife is so sweet.”

How was he on the set?

“He knows what’s he’s doing and he knows what he wants and he comes incredibly prepared; he reads the script so many times and has great arsenal of information and ideas.”

Was he funny?

“He’s very funny. He’s extremely funny, silly actually. Sometimes, silly-funny.”

What was your most unforgettable experience working on this film?

“I got an alligator and put it in Bruce’s trailer. It was about this big.” (Holding her hands half a foot apart) “And John told Bruce that we’re gonna have lunch in his trailer. I was hiding in the shower, opened the shower and there was an alligator. Guess how Bruce reacted when he saw it. “ (Laughed and laughed)

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