Helen Mirren has revealed that she reached out to Queen Elizabeth II before portraying a “profoundly painful part” of the monarch’s life in the 2006 film “The Queen.”
The movie centers around the queen’s handling of Princess Diana’s death. The monarch was criticized at the time for remaining at her home in Balmoral, with Princes William and Harry, instead of immediately returning to London to pay tribute to the Princess of Wales.
“I said, ‘We are doing this film. We are investigating a very difficult time in your life. I hope it’s not too awful for you,’” Mirren told the Radio Times in this week’s issue.
“I can’t remember how I put it. I just said that in my research I found myself with a growing respect for her, and I just wanted to say that,” the actor added.
“She didn’t write back, of course, but her secretary did,” Mirren said. “You know, ‘Yours sincerely, da di da di da,’ on behalf of the Queen. I was very relieved subsequently that I had written that letter.”
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Prior to taking on the role, for which Mirren won her first Oscar, the actor said that she also found a way to make peace with her portrayal of a living monarch. She said it “hadn’t been done before,” as this was “long before ‘The Crown.’”
“I thought, ‘Are you allowed to do that?’ I looked at portraits when I did [the 2005 drama series] ‘Elizabeth I’ and thought, ‘What I’m doing is another portrait,’” Mirren reasoned.
“And there are so many portraits of Elizabeth II, paintings and photographs ― this is mine,” she added. “That liberated me.”
Olivia Coleman, who played Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix’s hit historical drama “The Crown,” has spoken about the challenges of portraying living members of the British royal family, as she has run into the royals at select events.
Shortly before Coleman took over the role of the queen in “The Crown,” she met the monarch’s grandson, William, and had a rather awkward encounter.
“I met Prince William at a dinner and he asked me what I was doing at the moment, before he quickly added, ‘actually, I know what you’re doing,’” Coleman said during a 2019 stop by “The Graham Norton Show.”
″’I was so excited and asked, ‘Have you watched it?’” she exclaimed, before adding that “His answer was a firm, ‘No.’”