In the Frame

by Helen Mirren

  The first preparation I did, thanks to Taylor’s insistence that I do research, was to fly to Leningrad, as it was then called, for a few days. This turned out to be an extraordinary experience.

  First I had to return to London. I got in touch with my friends at the World Service, to see if they had any contacts still in Moscow. I was told of a couple who had fled Russia in very dramatic circumstances a few years before. The young man, in preparation for their escape, had joined the merchant navy, in a position far below his level of education. He had spent two or three years working as a seaman. When finally he felt the moment was right, he smuggled his young wife on board. They had stockpiled sleeping tablets and she took some and hid in the tiny space below his bunk. Halfway through the journey, afraid she was dying, he had taken a terrible risk by carrying her, with difficulty, to the deck. There he hid her in a lifeboat. When the ship arrived in Hull, he dragged her ashore and begged asylum from an uncomprehending policeman. They were in real danger, for had they been spotted from the boat or forced back on board by the police, they would have faced a long spell in jail. Luckily the policeman managed to understand what they were saying and took them in.

  I arranged to meet this couple, and discovered that the wife had a mother and father in Moscow that they were unable to communicate with. The parents had been punished for the actions of the child. This of course was how the Soviets controlled their citizens. If you tried to get away, it was your family who suffered. The reason Mikhail was able to leave was because he had no relatives in Russia, his mother having committed suicide.

  The young couple had run away without thinking too much about the effect on their parents, but now they were desperate to be in touch. They gave me letters to smuggle in and safe numbers to call. The go-between was a friend of theirs who could be trusted and spoke some English. I was instructed to call only from a call box, not the hotel. They were deadly serious. The Soviet Union was in its darkest days of paranoia.

  In those days, going into Russia your bags were searched more carefully than when you were leaving. The letters were burning a hole in the sock under my foot. I had also been given books in Russian for the parents; banned, as it turned out. I said they were for friends in Finland, where I was going after Russia. These were confiscated, but the letters got through, hidden in my shoe.

  As soon as I could, I went to a call box and dialled the number. The young man who answered was very suspicious, but I persuaded him to meet me. He came, still suspicious, but gradually I was able to convince him that I was not a KGB agent and he set up a meeting with the parents.

  The day came. I was instructed not to open my mouth in public, just to say ‘Da’ or ‘Niet’, and we took a taxi out to the sad Soviet-style outskirts of Leningrad, with huge ugly grey blocks made up of tiny apartments. The parents had been successful engineers with a nice apartment in the centre of Leningrad. Their punishment for their child escaping had been to lose their dacha, their jobs and their apartment.

  Above: My pink Mustang from Rent-a-Wreck, the famous car-rental company in LA.

  Two of my greatest friends in Los Angeles were Brad Davis and his wife. Brad had a sauna in the garden shed of his house in Studio City, and he would force all visitors in there. Brad was a great free spirit, and anyone who knew him treasured him. When I first met him, on a film for television, he had come out of rehabilitation from going AWOL with drink and drugs. He’d had a great success with ‘Midnight Express’ and could not handle that and the pressures of Hollywood. Once he was over that glitch, which almost destroyed his career (Brad never did anything by halves), he was a wicked angel of a person.

  Once they realised I was for real they were absolutely overjoyed to hear from their daughter and son-in-law. I gave them the letters, plus an umbrella I had brought as a gift. I thought it was something I could legitimately be seen to be carrying. There was much weeping and they were very kind to me. I explained that I was in Leningrad to do research for my role and was hoping to visit the Kirov (now the Maryinsky again), just to see what it was like. They said, ‘We will arrange it.’

  It turned out one of them had a brother who worked in the orchestra. I was told to meet them around the corner from the theatre, and there they made the introduction. Again I was given strict instructions not to open my mouth under any circumstances. The uncle then took me in through the stage door, and showed me every inch of the backstage area, from the dressing rooms to the beautiful rehearsal space on the top floor that Misha had described to Taylor. He did this despite the risk to himself and his position. It was an act of great generosity and some courage. I was then taken to a box seat where I watched the ballet. My research could not have been better.

  In those memorable days in Leningrad, with these new friends, it was so clear that the days of the Soviet regime were numbered. It was writ large. The young people I met were absolutely fed up with the system. They did not care about the Second World War and the struggles against the Nazis, the siege of Leningrad or the twenty-two million dead. They did not care about equality or owning the means of production. They wanted blue jeans and rock and roll. They wanted to hear the music they wanted to hear and wear the clothes they wanted to wear, and read the books they wanted to read. They wanted cultural freedom. Soviet Communism was doomed. The next year Gorbachev came into power and perestroika began.

  In 2004 I returned to Russia. Leningrad had reverted to St Petersburg, and this time when I met with the parents it was in the open, in a restaurant where we could speak freely. It was a wonderful reunion. Their daughter and son-in-law had been back several times, and the parents had visited London. Life was better for them, and it was wonderful to see.

  From Russia I flew to Finland and started work on White Nights, and also started on a relationship that is still with me.

  I had to come from Fulham for this Command Performance, attended by Charles and Diana. With my friend Sandy I left with plenty of time, as we had strict instructions to arrive for the screening before the Royal party. However I did not reckon with Fulham football ground. They were playing at home that Saturday, and just as we left for the theatre the fans came out. My car got stuck in horrendous traffic. The only way to get to the Leicester Square Theatre on time was to bail out of the car and run the last 500 yards. Sandy and I ran, jumped the security fence, and arrived panting and sweating seconds before Charles and Diana.

  Film stills from 2010.

  Here are the two faces of love. One acted and one real. Work it out.

  In the background of the shot of me and Tay talking is camera operator Freddie Cooper. Taylor said he was astounding to work with, the best he had ever known. His eye was brilliant, his technique superlative. Filming dance is notoriously difficult, but Freddie’s camera seemed to be able to anticipate to within an eighth of an inch where Misha or Gregory Hines’s foot would land, and arrive at that spot in a smooth, imperceptible move.

  In Front of the Camera

  Moving up a level and Jane Tennison

  I feel as though it took me for ever to learn how to act for the screen. Even now, I am still not sure that I have cracked it. When I was starting out, I could not look at myself, it made me feel too self-conscious. The way your mouth moves, the sound of your voice, the set of your head from behind, and a million other things completely take you by surprise. It is a very uncomfortable feeling. Also the knowledge that this piece of shadow and light will come back to haunt you for years to come is very intimidating. My acting then was so ‘rabbit in the headlights’ I preferred not to look at it unless absolutely necessary.

  When I did Mosquito Coast I was determined to use the experience as a tool to free me. Film acting, at its best, combines a sense of utter freedom within a discipline that is highly technical and controlled. I have watched it at its best. My husband made a film with Al Pacino and I was impressed by how technically adept Al was, knowing precisely the camera angles, the lenses, the continuity, the correct pitch for the close-up, the medium shot, the
wide, and so forth, and yet he managed to remain absolutely free and improvisational within those confines.

  When I did Mosquito Coast I had not yet had the advantage of watching Al at work. I had, however, done 2010, and worked with an actor called Bob Balaban, and he gave me some invaluable advice that I have used ever since. He said film acting is like archery. You aim the arrow and hope it will hit its target, but you can never be sure of that. You have to just let it go, and leave it to fall where it will. ‘Never go home and angst about what you might have or should have done,’ he said. ‘You cannot take it back, so just let it go.’

  Finding myself in the jungles of Belize, with another consummate technician, Harrison Ford, I decided to ignore the technical side for the time being and just learn to be as free as possible, just be, or try to be.

  I have always said my inspirations for film acting are babies and animals, for they behave with no awareness of the camera at all. Well, actually animals, babies and Anna Magnani. Behaviour is really what film acting is about, which is why sometimes you will find great film actors who cannot perform on stage. I drove Peter Weir, the director, mad with my lack of technique, ‘behaving’ away with no consciousness of where the camera was, let alone what lens was being used, often not on camera at all. I didn’t care. I just wanted to be free. In fact, this experience was very useful for me, and it broke the fear I had of those black machines about to capture your soul.

  So this was the beginning of my education in film acting. It continued through every film I subsequently did, but it was not until the relentless hours of work that I put into Prime Suspect that I became a graduate. I had the advantage of working very closely with some superb directors who understood their medium and its techniques. They all taught me as I watched them work. Whenever possible I would spend time behind the camera, hovering with my ears open and, mostly, my mouth shut, eavesdropping as the director and cameraman or DP (director of photography) would have their discussions about how to shoot the scene. Afterwards I would go home and, as a relief from learning my lines, draw diagrams of how to shoot a scene with multiple characters, and what crossing the line is. I learned to ask the camera crew what lens was being used, I learned how important the dolly grip is, and how to work directly with all of the crew to make their jobs and my own easier.

  The cast of the first Prime Suspect.

  I think in all I did twenty-six onscreen hours of Prime Suspect and I came out the other end with a very good knowledge of all the morgues around Manchester and some in London, and a good understanding of film acting and film-making. I had learned to trust my instinct. I had learned freedom … I hope. It is still elusive.

  Prime Suspect came my way like any other, with my agent sending me a script. I wish I could say I knew immediately that this was going to be an important part of my professional life, but I didn’t. I did know that it was a terrific role: a funny, flawed real woman at last, one that was the protagonist in the story, the motor that drove it along. This was and still is very rare. Lynda La Plante, coming from her success with Widows, was writing with confidence and invention. The woman she wrote was perhaps the first I had ever read – and in that I include Shakespeare and Chekhov – that was not a fantasy figure of some sort, but seemed to be a woman I could recognise.

  I met with Lynda and the executive producer, Sally Head. I think we were lucky in that the head of drama at that time was a woman, and the very talented Sally Head to boot, responsible for developing both Prime Suspect and, later, Cracker.

  I happily agreed to have my hair cut, did a costume fitting, and met with a policewoman to learn a little about a world I knew nothing about, the world of the police.

  Fresh from the costume fitting, where I had been posing in front of the mirror assuming what I thought was a strong position – arms folded, butch-looking … you know – I met with the woman in charge of Holloway police station. She gave me the most invaluable advice: never let them see you cry, and never cross your arms. When I asked why, she said, ‘Because it is a defensive action and therefore weak.’ The police are masters when it comes to body language. She went on to tell me that, if you want to show power over someone, you should touch him or her lightly on the arm. Watch heads of state as they meet each other; they fight to be the first one to touch. Throughout Prime Suspect I don’t think I ever crossed my arms, and Jane Tennison only cries in private.

  A very small selection of photographs from Prime Suspect over the years!

  I then had to fly off to Italy to film Where Angels Fear to Tread. It was one of those occasions where the scheduling of two projects is so tight they almost overlap. At 4 p.m. when the film finished shooting in Tuscany, I drove for three hours to the nearest airport, got home at about 11 p.m. and was due on set to start shooting the next day in London at 6 a.m., the first order of business being to have my hair cut. I had absolutely no preparation time, diving in at the deep end. I simply had to play it by ear, so to speak, and rely on my instincts.

  My real worry was how I was going to learn it. It seemed a vast amount to get in my head. I had never played in a four-hour piece with such a long role before. In the early thoughts about a part, you have to have a sense of the overall shape of the performance. What happens in the beginning and how you play it has to make sense and have a connection to what happens in the end. The character shifts and learns and changes through the story, and that should be seen.

  In film-making this process is messed up by shooting completely out of sequence. You often start shooting the very last scene, then jump to the middle, then to the beginning, then back to the end again. Therefore it is essential to have a very clear sense of how the character is developing through the story.

  Just to organise the script was intimidating, especially with no preparation time. On my days off in Italy I would psychologically drag myself out of turn-of-the-century Italian society into a dark contemporary world and struggle with the huge, unwieldy script. To begin with I tried breaking the script down into scenes and sticking them up around my hotel room, but I quickly ran out of wall space.

  In the end, once work on Prime Suspect was under way, I found a system of learning that divided upcoming scenes into folders marked ‘tomorrow’, ‘day after tomorrow’ and ‘next week’, broken down into days of the week. It is a system I have used ever since, learning scenes two to three days ahead. Whenever I was not actually filming, I was learning. I was so happy to throw pages away as they had been filmed.

  Chris Menaul, the director, had a very strong visual style he wanted to achieve. Without being too technical, this involved a camera that was always moving, slowly with long lenses. It gave the piece a very atmospheric look, but was devilishly difficult to achieve for all concerned, actors and camera crew.

  I think we went through three focus pullers on that first show. The depth of field was very shallow, almost impossible for the focus puller, and required very accurate hitting of marks by the actors. One inch over the mark and you would be out of focus. A further problem was the fact that we were filming in winter in Maxwell House, former home of the Maxwell publishing empire in Manchester. Unheated, freezing cold and rat-infested – that human rat having been replaced by more innocent four-legged rodents – it was not a building that was designed to be filmed in. The moving camera would squeak its way over the wooden floors, destroying the soundtrack of any take that was in focus. We all had to be very, very patient. We also came under pressure from the production company, Granada, for budgetary reasons. I don’t think there was much belief in the project, there being a suspicion that a female-led drama could not succeed.

  Chris Menaul earned my admiration for the dogged and relentless way he pressed on, refusing to compromise his vision, no matter how hard it was to achieve. That is all you want from a film director, an obsessed and uncompromisingly relentless nature, combined with a great technical ability. In Chris, we had exactly those qualities, and the ultimate success of Prime Suspect came from his vision and his insiste
nce in getting it on the screen.

  Right: With Harrison Ford in Mosquito Coast.

  Centre: This display from a video store in Georgia was the closest I ever got to equal billing with a big movie star.

  Bottom: Some of my co-stars and our driver. I especially loved the two red-headed twins playing my daughters.

  Surprisingly, considering the subject matter and the circumstances of the shoot, I found myself in a situation of almost constant laughter, thanks to the fantastic cast that Doreen Jones, the casting director, had assembled with Chris. The men and woman who played the team of detectives were not for the most part seasoned television actors, but Doreen had a knack of finding very talented, interesting actors, and in the process discovered quite a few stars.

  Tom Bell, who made such an impression on the audience with his wonderful performance as the bitter, mean and sexist Bill Otley, was of course a well-known actor, but also in that cast list you will find the names of Tom Wilkinson, Zoë Wanamaker and Ralph Fiennes. To me every actor working on that first Prime Suspect was a star.

  It was my team – the fellow actors playing detectives that I spent so many hours with and who made it all so much easier for me with their support and their sense of fun – that I shall never forget and always be grateful for. The cast of Prime Suspect 1 are special people.