Chinese Character - Helen Mirren's 'Queen' set to reign at Oscars

ENTERTAINMENT / Movies






Helen Mirren's 'Queen' set to reign at Oscars

(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-02-14 08:52



LOS ANGELES - Meryl Streep and Judi Dench got nasty. Kate Winslet
stripped and Penelope Cruz padded her rear. But it is Helen Mirren and
her prim silver curls who looks likely to reign on Oscar night.

Mirren's performance as Britain's Queen Elizabeth in "The Queen" has
brought the British actress her widest acclaim in 40 years on stage,
screen and television and she is considered a front runner to add Oscar
gold to her clutch of more than 15 trophies.

"She's won every early award," said Tom O'Neil, columnist for
www.TheEnvelope.com. "It has been a rare sweep that almost always results
in victory on Oscar night. There is no serious challenger to knock her
out."

To hear Mirren tell it, it is Queen Elizabeth herself who audiences have
fallen for rather than her humanizing portrayal of the reserved British
monarch during the extraordinary wave of public emotion that followed the
1997 death of Princess Diana.

"I think you fell in love with her, not with me. I just tried to make her
as truthful to herself as possible," Mirren said in dedicating her Golden
Globe win in January to Queen Elizabeth.

At the Feb. 25 Oscar ceremony, Mirren will be competing for best actress
against 14-time Oscar nominee Streep, who won a Golden Globe as a
demanding fashion editor in "The Devil Wears Prada"; Spanish beauty
Penelope Cruz, who plays the mother of an abused girl in "Volver"; and
two fellow Britons -- Kate Winslet of the adultery drama "Little
Children" and Judi Dench of the psychological thriller "Notes on a
Scandal."

OSCAR AND OLDER WOMEN

If she wins, Mirren, 61, will take home her first Oscar and join a small
group of actresses over the age of 50 to have won in a town where women
past 35 are often dismissed as has-beens.

"Only one woman past age of 50 has won an Oscar in the past 15 years and
that was Judi Dench for supporting actress in 'Shakespeare in Love,'"
O'Neil said. "Oscar voters are babe-chasing older guys who treat the best
actress race like a beauty contest."

Mirren has proved adept at playing both ends of the babe factor against
the middle.

In "The Queen" she pursed her lips and aged up 20 years, confounding her
image as a sultry, silver-haired woman with a penchant for racy jokes who
has appeared nude in more than a dozen movies, including at age 58 in
"The Calendar Girls."

Mirren has had a long career on British stage and television, ranging
from Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" to a hard-bitten chief police
detective in the television series "Prime Suspect."

Despite a 10-year marriage to U.S. director Taylor Hackford and two
previous Oscar nominations in the best supporting actress categories,
Mirren's profile has been much lower in Hollywood.

But that is changing due to the critical success of "The Queen" --
boosted by America's fascination with British royalty -- as well as
Mirren's award-winning performance in the television production of an
earlier royal, "Elizabeth I."

Mirren may have spent most of the past year wearing a crown but she shows
few signs of craving the royal treatment.

"Win or lose, the bubble bursts and you're back to the nitty gritty of
working," she told Reuters in an interview last month. "I'm honestly at
my happiest in a cold rehearsal room with my polystyrene cup of tea."








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