Helen Mirren in Berlin (Ansa)

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28 February 2020Black jacket with the logo of Radiohead and Union Jack, Helen Mirren in Berlin immediately makes one thing clear: she is still a girl. So she showed up at the
Berlinale that not only dedicated the Bear to her career, but also a review of five films including, of course, "The Queen" by Stephen Frears (2006), a work that gave him from the Volpi Cup to the Oscar down.

She is also very close to Italy, so much so that she bought a house in Salento and also for this reason she says: "I would like to work in any film set in Puglia, I also love Checco Zalone". Great love for Italian cinema: "I love not only Anna Magnani and Sophia Loren, but when I saw Monica Vitti in Antonioni's 'The Adventure' it was a real revelation. So I was a waitress in Brighton and I loved to close myself in the cinemas that smelled of beer and tobacco. " Of the scandalous "Caligola" by Tinto Brass (1979) he says: "At the time, it was a shock, but I remember in an interview I said: I'm sure that in twenty years these things will be seen on TV and I was absolutely right. however the chaos of that film, its radical anarchy ". And the anecdote about Queen Elizabeth II inevitably arrives. "I had already met her once before interpreting her. I come from a republican family, we are open-minded and anything but monarchical, but she is a woman I respect. I admire her for her total adherence to her institutional role, I think she should to undergo a great mental and physical discipline, he must do everything in moderation ".

Della Berlinale, he explains, "I like audiences who are cultured and expert in cinema. Here the spectators are not afraid to express what they think". The script is the key for her to choose a film to make. "Here is my secret, I start reading from the last page. If my character is still there, then it is a good sign. If he leaves the scene before, but in a dramatic and grandiose way, he can still go. If he disappears into thin air, they say".

Finally, this is where 74-year-old Helen Mirren really comes from, actually Dame Elena Vasil'evna Mironova. In fact, his father anglicized the surname by swamping his noble
Tsarist ancestry. Nothing strange if he agreed to also act as Catherine the Great in the HBO series. "It was a way to recover memories and stories removed. I also love the roles of people who take their destiny in hand. Caterina - she concludes - was, as is known, a daring woman who modernized Russia where she had arrived without even speaking a word of the language. "