Dame Helen Mirren arrives slightly late and holding a glass of pink champagne. With an Oscar, four Baftas, three Golden Globes, a Tony, five Emmys and an Olivier award to her name, the leading lady of has perhaps earned the right to drink what and when she wants. Besides, she’s been busy.
Mirren has returned to the role of Maeve Harrigan, foul-mouthed, scheming Irish matriarch of the Harrigan crime clan, in Guy Ritchie and Northern Irish writer Ronan Bennett’s violent madcap gangster series, which the actor describes as “gothic and grotesque”.
We’re behind schedule because Mirren has just asked the other female members of the cast to go back into the studio and stage a mock fight for photographer. As people tend to do what she wants, that is exactly what has happened. She’s not sure if anyone is really scared of her – “I don’t think so, but what do I know?” – but in the flesh Mirren maintains some of the imperious power of the rulers she has often played. “It’s very weird,” she concedes. “It’s because of the wigs and big dresses and crowns.” Before adding, “I do love a big dress and a crown.”
Her monarchs, which so far include Cleopatra, Elizabeth I, Elizabeth II (twice) and Catherine the Great, can be intimidating, but none have the murderous force of Maeve Harrigan. A blood-hungry criminal avenger apparently shipped in from a Greek tragedy, Maeve makes life hot for her gang-boss husband, Pierce Brosnan’s Conrad Harrigan, and hell for everyone else. “She is awful,” says Mirren. “Am I shocked by her? I guess I am, but the piece inhabits a fantastical world. It’s a dreamscape really; heightened and extreme.”
As is Maeve’s language. “Oh, my God! Every other word is the c-word or the f-word.” Mirren, now 81, is a woman of the world but is she even slightly uncomfortable using the c-word so often? “I don’t have an issue with it at all,” she says cheerfully. “I’m an actor. I was thrown out of quite a few pubs in the old days when women weren’t supposed to be swearing in pubs.”
The series, which also stars Tom Hardy as family enforcer Harry Da Souza, is scripted by playwright Jez Butterworth. “Ronan, who originated the story and created the world, was fantastic, but Jez has taken that and elaborated it. He is one of the great living playwrights. He understands character.” Women’s characters as well? “I’ve played Lady M,” says Mirren, avoiding the name of the Scottish play. “And Maeve does have elements of Lady M, but if only Shakespeare had written like Jez Butterworth, she would have been a much better character to play.”
The role fits me like a glove, which is slightly worrying – I hope I'm not remotely like Maeve
Like , the first series of descended into bloodshed. Much of it was due to Maeve and her many plots, which often targeted the women in her own extended family.
“I very much wanted to do this photoshoot with the women of , because all of those women’s characters are so proactive and strong, and an intrinsic part of the show,” Mirren says. “They have scenes with each other, not always having a scene with a male character, which is the way it is for female characters normally.”
The women who play those characters, Lara Pulver, Mandeep Dhillon and Teddie Allen, have all said they see Mirren as an inspirational figure. “It’s very weird; as you get older, a sort of ill-placed respect arrives for no particular reason,” she says of this. “I think it’s just the respect of survival. I don’t feel any different really to how I did when I was 23 or 24.”
Does she welcome the female cast members’ respect for her achievements? “No. Honestly, I don’t feel like that, and I don’t want to be in that position at all. I’m not saying I don’t appreciate it if they feel like that, but I love to work in an ensemble situation, and is very ensemble. It suits me just fine.”
The show attracted publicity earlier in the year when it was reported that Hardy’s on-set behaviour had annoyed the rest of the cast. How does she deal with media furores? “I separate myself from all of that,” she says. “I don’t read it. I don’t look at it. I don’t contribute to it.”
In May, Mirren posted a picture of Hardy with the words “Love you now and always, Helen” on Instagram and has stated publicly she would work with him again in a “heartbeat”. “You do learn certain things as you get older,” she says of her attitude to her fellow actors. “About how to work with people, really.”
She is awful… am I shocked by her? I guess I am
I wonder if she has become more forgiving of people? “No, but what you learn is every single person is different; every single person has their own way of doing things. There’s not one way, there’s a million different ways.” She takes a sip of pink champagne. “What you want is what’s on the screen, or what’s on the stage, to be great. And the only way to do that is for everyone to feel that they can be free to create and explore and experiment and f*** up.” Surely Mirren, with her five Emmys, doesn’t f*** up? “Oh endlessly, but that’s part of the game.”
This is not her first gangster role. Mirren played a gang boss’s partner alongside Bob Hoskins in the 1979 London film , and, again, with Michael Gambon in Peter Greenaway’s 1989 art-house hit, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. And public fascination with gangsters remains as strong as ever. Why do we like watching people being murdered by villains? “And tortured!” she adds, referencing something Brosnan’s Conrad is keen on.
“I don’t understand it, honestly. Why did Agatha Christie write so many books about murder? It’s very interesting that it’s women who buy and who watch true crime and are fascinated by people being dismembered and buried and dropped in swamps.” But this, she points out, is Guy Ritchie’s version of violence. “It’s not realism, it’s not documentary. It’s very, very, very heightened, and because of that, very free. There’s an element of chaos and wildness about it.”
And so, with a rumoured third series ahead, Mirren is happy to stay in the role, swearing, scheming and bringing down vengeance on anyone who crosses the Harrigans. “It just fits me like a glove, and it’s slightly worrying because I hope I’m not remotely like Maeve,” she says. “I absolutely love entering her world. I go home thinking, ‘Why am I enjoying this so much? Why do I feel so easy doing this?’ There must be some flaw in my character.”