Helen Mirren by Brian Ach/WireImage.com
Rape, drugs and shoplifting were just some of the things that marked Helen Mirren's youth.In a revealing interview with British GQ, the Oscar winner shared that she was a frequent illegal drug user and was date raped multiple times in her teens."I loved coke. I never did a lot, just a little bit at parties," she said, according to People, adding that she also took marijuana and LSD."Dope always made me feel miserable and paranoid and unhappy," Mirren said. "And I woke up one day and thought, 'No more of that, thank you.'"The 63-year-old, who also admitted to shoplifting for food because she was "very poor," added that she was date raped "a couple of times" in London — but without violence, she's quick to note."[It was] rather being locked in a room and made to have sex against my will," she said.Though she supports women's right to say "no" to sex, Mirren did not report her rapes as she didn't — and still doesn't — believe it will do any good."I don't think [a woman] ...
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Jessica Biel by Lester Cohen/ WireImage.com
You know I'm all about Ms. Charisma, but I could kinda see this: Jessica Biel is in talks to make Wonder Woman's cups runneth over in the Justice League of America film, says Variety. The studio has no comment on the buzz, instead saying it will announce its Batman, Aquaman et al all at once, at a later date.... Jennifer Aniston is a floral designer who befriends Aaron Eckhart's hypocritical self-help guru in the drama Traveling.... Kevin James will write, produce and star as a Mall Cop thrust into comedic action when a band of thieves take over his turf.... Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren and Robin Wright Penn have come on board State of Play, an adaptation of the U.K. miniseries.
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Katherine Heigl and Kevin Dillon by John Shearer/WireImage.com
And some people worried that getting Ryan Seacrest to host this year’s Emmy telecast was going to be the producers’ worst idea. That’s before we got a look at the set, an unwieldy and unappealing theater-in-the-round setup that looked more suitable for the new American Gladiators revival than for an awards show. The nominees, half of whom saw only the backs of the various presenters and performers, had a deer-in-the-headlights look every time Seacrest approached them or the cameras awkwardly cut to them. They appeared to be sitting in penalty boxes, not deluxe auditorium seats.Honestly, though, we poor schnooks at home were the ones suffering the penalty here: as in, confronted with one of the worst Emmy telecasts I can remember. As Emmy years go, I’m actually at peace with the majority of the winners, given who was and wasn’t nominated (and we’ve been over that frustrating ground plenty of times since the July nominations). Learning who won was a lot m...
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Speaking to her embarrassment of riches — from the Oscars to the Emmys — Mirren notes, "I [also] have had a few losses, so I am very familiar with that feeling as well. It's always down to the writing, and, of course, the direction. The writing is where the role springs from and I was lucky to have some beautifully written roles."Updating us on the matter of ever meeting up with the queen, whom she portrayed to Academy Award-winning perfection, Mirren says, "The queen and I haven’t hooked up yet. She very graciously invited me to dinner, but [I wasn't able to go]. I felt mortified, but there was nothing I could do." A royal rain check, perhaps? "I don’t know, only time will tell! I certainly hope so."
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9:50: Sally Field looks freakin' terrific. And she and winner Helen Mirren are wearing two of the nicer, more creative colors of the night. Unfortunately, Helen's dress looks a little like a safety harness. But at least a pretty-colored one!9:51: Helen is asking the conductor to Muzak her off. "I'm going on and on," she notes. But she's British, so it's charming.9:52: Lewis Black is sorta yelling at us now. He's like Gilbert Gottfried, only less greasy. But he's spot-on with his gripe: Enough with the teasers during a show for a show that will come on later! No wonder he's yelling. That stuff ticks me off, too.9:53: Oh dear. Lisa Edelstein can't quite fill in her frontless dress. I'm 200 percent against boob jobs, and Edelstein's a knockout, but as Britney recently taught us, packaging is everything.9:55: They run one of those annoying ads under Black as he is plugging Fox's fall schedule. They lost me there. The ad wasn't nearly as garish as the ones they normally run, and it only ...
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August Schellenberg in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Annabel Reyes/HBO
Nominations for the 59th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, to be broadcast Sept. 16 on Fox, were announced Thursday morning. Here are the major races in the miniseries or TV-movie field.Lead Actress in a Miniseries or TV-movie:Queen Latifah (Life Support)Helen Mirren (Prime Suspect: The Final Act)Mary-Louise Parker (The Robber Bride)Debra Messing (The Starter Wife)Gena Rowlands (What If God Were the Sun)Lead Actor in a Miniseries or TV-movie:Robert Duvall (Broken Trail)Tom Selleck (Jesse Stone: Sea Change)Jim Broadbent (Longford)William H. Macy (Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King)Matthew Perry (The Ron Clark Story)Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or TV-movie:Greta Scacchi (Broken Trail)Anna Paquin (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee)Samantha Morton (Longford)Judy Davis (The Starter Wife)Toni Collette (Tsunami: The Aftermath)Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or TV-movie:Thomas Haden Church (Broken Trail)August Schellenberg (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee) Aidan Qui...
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The Queen courtesy Miramax Films
Send your movie questions to FlickChick See Maitland McDonagh and Ken Fox review this weeks new flicks in Movie Talk Helen Mirren richly deserved the Oscar she received for starring in this weeks DVD Tuesday pick The Queen but I was disappointed that her costar Michael Sheen wasnt even nominated For my money the only thing better than Peter Morgans subtle witty screenplay which earned him an Oscar nomination Morgan also scripted The Last King of Scotland which earned Forest Whitaker his Oscar was the sheer virtuosity with which Mirren and Sheen brought it to life The Queen is a four-hander and theyre both brilliantJust in case you managed to sequester yourself in a mountain cave during awards season the queen in question is HRH Elizabeth II and the film is set in 1997 Specifically Stephen Frears restrained comedy of manners unfolds in the days following the death of Peoples Princess Diana Spencer and carefully dissects the pas de deux between the queen w
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Per the Hollywood Reporter, Helen Mirren has signed on to play Nicolas Cage's momma in the sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets, which features Ed Harris as the baddie.... Jennifer Hudson is in talks to join another freshly minted Oscar winner, Forest Whitaker, as well as nominee Jackie Earl Haley in Winged Creatures.... Ice Cube will star in Tough Love, a true-story-inspired comedy about an NFL star who makes his spoiled-brat kids spend a summer on the mean streets of Oakland.... MTV Films has bought the spec script I Want to ___ Your Sister, about a brother trying to protect his younger sis from lugs just like him. Um, Date? Marry?
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A few postscripts to Sunday's Academy Awards:• This year's kudoscast drew 39.9 million total viewers, a million-head gain from 2006's anemic audience. With Ellen DeGeneres at the helm, the show also noted a 15 percent boost in women 18-34.• The Departed's Oscar winners, director Martin Scorsese and scribe William Monahan, may reteam for The Long Play, a rock 'n' roll epic that follows two friends through 40 years in the music business. (Variety)• Helen Mirren may be invited to tea with the real Queen Elizabeth II — whom, a Buckingham Palace says, was "pleased" by her portrayer's best-actress win. (AP)• The goodie bag for presenters at this year's "green" Oscars consisted solely of "a gift of 100,000 lbs. of greenhouse-gas reductions from carbon-offset retailer TerraPass." Don't worry, I'm feeling clueless, too. But that's why I gave you the link.
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The one thing I realized as Oscar night droned on and on for nearly four hours: If I ever had to choose someone to be stranded with for hours on end (say, like those poor Jet Blue passengers a few weeks ago), it would have to be Ellen DeGeneres.Keeping her cool, and her genuine aura of chipper goodwill, throughout three costume changes (in suits from red velvet to all-white to royal blue) and what seemed once again like an overindulgent excess of movie montages (we definitely could have done without Michael Mann’s fuzzy survey of cinematic American history), Ellen was welcome nearly every time she popped up. Offering a spec script to Martin Scorsese, directing Steven Spielberg on how to take her photo with Clint Eastwood, asking the megastars in the front row to lift their legs as she vacuumed the Kodak past midnight (ET), while informing us that Helen Mirren had just asked for a rum and coke (sounded pretty good to me at the time), Ellen did her darndest to deflate the bloat a...
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