The Queen of, Well, Everything
So, though “The Office” didn’t win any Golden Globes last night, I had a couple of consolations, namely Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep.
(By the way, I’m happy that “Ugly Betty” and its star America Ferrera won Globes—I’ve never seen the show, of course, since it’s on at the same time as “The Office,” and my priorities there are clear. But I’ll happily root for Ferrera because she’s not stick-thin and because her Globes dress was purple. I just wish “Ugly Betty” hadn’t had to beat “The Office” to get its Best Comedy Series trophy. Grump, grump.)
Thanks to The Queen, I can now distinguish Mirren from all the other British-actresses-who-can-do-Shakespeare-and-who-get-nominated-a-lot. I mean, I’d seen her in so many things previously, but I struggled to come up with her name when I saw her face. Maybe that’s part of why she’s such a good actress—she does tend to melt into her roles. However, she shines on awards nights: her Golden Globes dress was officially my favorite of the evening, though evil sites like In Style are officially ignoring it in favor of Cameron Diaz’s Ruffle-Fest of Doom.
Anyway, both Mirren and Streep gave the classiest acceptance speeches—and the funniest, outshining Eddie Murphy (and Sacha Baron Cohen, whose body-humor-laced speech quenched any desire I had to see Borat). How brilliant of Streep to end her speech with her character Miranda Priestly’s supremely dismissive “That’s all.”
These two venerable ladies, along with Judi Dench, also grace the cover of this week’s Entertainment Weekly. Their three-way interview in the magazine has plenty of wit and insight. Among the highlights are when Streep explains her theory about why there were so many great roles for older women this year: “There are several generations of women who have the habit of going out to the movies and buying a ticket, which is not so true [of young people]. It’s just like in the music business. The only people that buy CDs are people like us. Everybody else downloads it illegally off the LimeWire. And that’s probably what’s coming with movies. But while we still have the habit of going to films, they d— well better market to us and give us something to watch.”
Oh, so that explains why I was the only person under 45 in the theater when I went to see The Queen (with my mother-in-law, I might note).
Another great moment is when Mirren responds to EW’s question about whether any of the three actresses have ever considered directing. After a hearty “no,” Mirren hypothesizes about why other male actors their age have jumped into the directing camp: “A weird thing happens to male actors, especially movie stars, in my experience. Which is, they become grumpy old men. I think a young male actor feels great. All the girls want him. He’s a star. As they get older, that sense of not being in control of their own destiny grates on them, and they get grumpy. And they move into direction to try and feel they’re in control of their own destiny.”
Helen Mirren, psychologist. Is there anything she can’t do?
Add comment January 16th, 2007