The Queen star Helen Mirren takes a dip in the Pacific Ocean with her producer husband Taylor Hackford in Hawaii on Friday, November 28. The 63-year-old Oscar-winning actress showed off her enviable figure in a purple tankini as she went snorkeling.
Helen is currently filming a Shakespearean screen adaptation The Tempest on the islands. According to IMDB, in Julie Taymor’s version of The Tempest, the gender of Prospero has been switched to Prospera. Going back to the 16th or 17th century, women practicing the magical arts of alchemy were often convicted of witchcraft. In Taymor’s version, Prospera is usurped by her brother and sent off with her daughter on a ship. She ends up on an island; it’s a tabula rasa: no society, so the mother figure becomes a father figure to Miranda (Felicity Jones). This leads to the power struggle and balance between Caliban (Djimon Hounsou) and Prospera; a struggle not about brawn, but about intellect.
Helen Mirren: Happy In Hawaii
Helen Mirren: Happy In Hawaii
The Queen star Helen Mirren takes a dip in the Pacific Ocean with her producer husband Taylor Hackford in Hawaii on Friday, November 28. The 63-year-old Oscar-winning actress showed off her enviable figure in a purple tankini as she went snorkeling.
Helen is currently filming a Shakespearean screen adaptation The Tempest on the islands. According to IMDB, in Julie Taymor’s version of The Tempest, the gender of Prospero has been switched to Prospera. Going back to the 16th or 17th century, women practicing the magical arts of alchemy were often convicted of witchcraft. In Taymor’s version, Prospera is usurped by her brother and sent off with her daughter on a ship. She ends up on an island; it’s a tabula rasa: no society, so the mother figure becomes a father figure to Miranda (Felicity Jones). This leads to the power struggle and balance between Caliban (Djimon Hounsou) and Prospera; a struggle not about brawn, but about intellect.
Helen Mirren Gets Framed
Helen Mirren signs copies of her new book In the Frame at Barnes & Noble on Friday in New York City.
The Queen actress, 62, is currently filming Love Ranch with Joe Pesci in Nevada loosely based on the lives of former Mustang Ranch owners Joe and Sally Conforte.
The film is being directed by Helen’s husband, Taylor Hackford, who also directed An Officer and a Gentleman.
Helen Mirren is More Sexy
Helen Mirren talks to More magazine about love, movies, aging gracefully, and reveals the sex appeal that just won’t quit.
Here’s what Dame Helen had to say in her interview, on newsstands March 18th:
On fame: “What I have is very benign, very sweet. Often it goes straight over my head. There are only two really tough times to be recognized: One is when you’re waiting for your luggage in the airport, and the other is when you are standing in line for the ladies’. Then you’re a captive and you either give up your place in line or you pretend that you don’t want your luggage after all. And then the embarrassment of my scruffy luggage when it does come out.’”
On sexuality and power: “I’m still trying to wriggle out from under that label. Sexuality for girls is so complex and tricky. I was never beautiful, but as a young woman, beautiful or not is sort of irrelevant. Being a sexual object is mortifying and irritating, yet it’s giving you power—an awful power that you’ve done nothing to deserve, a powerless power. I think some young women fall in love with that power, and it’s really objectifying. And when it starts falling away, it’s an incredible relief.”
On her opinion on Americans: “I think Americans are a little parochial, a little naïve. Naïveté can be a good thing as well, all that innocence and idealism, not like those cynical Europeans: ‘Oh, it’ll never work!’ But sometimes Americans show a terrible cruelty toward their own people, like what happened post-Katrina, in the wealthiest country in the world. Which is extraordinary to me.”
On aging and still working: “I’ve never been worried about getting older, but I do recognize that I’ve been incredibly lucky. I’ve been able to keep working and working, how cool is that? I’m still here, and I’m surging ahead at the moment. But that happened because I’ve always thought of myself as constantly learning.”
On experience and getting older: “When you’re 16, you think 28 is so old! And then you get to 28 and it’s fabulous. You think, then, what about 42? Ugh! And then 42 is great. As you reach each age, you gain the understanding and experience you need to deal with it and enjoy it.”