NUDITY? "I DON'T SEE THE BIG DEAL," SAYS HELEN MIRREN AS SHE KIDS MORLEY SAFER ABOUT DOING THEIR "60 MINUTES" INTERVIEW IN THE NUDE -- SUNDAY ON CBS
Even as she plays prim characters like the queen of England -- for which she's been nominated for best actress by the Golden Globes -- Helen Mirren says she's still burdened by past nude scenes, a situation she finds silly. "I don't see the big deal," she tells Morley Safer in a 60 MINUTES profile to be broadcast Sunday, Jan. 7 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
"We call it 'getting your kit off' in England," Mirren says of nude scenes. "Yes, I am famous for getting my kit off," says the British actress who's been naked on camera as far back as the late '70s in "Caligula" and as recently as 2003 in "Calendar Girls," when she was 58.
"I'm still doing it! Oh it gets better as you get older, Morley," laughs Mirren. "You should try it. Yes, I think we should do this interview, both of us, in the nude. You'd love it!
"Well...I don't see the big deal, you know. I don't get it," she says of people's obsession with her "getting her kit off," which drew nicknames like "the sex queen of Stratford" or "the thinking man's crumpet." "It did used to get to me but I just kind of ignored it, which I am still doing to this day, Morley," Mirren says.
Her nude scenes were never a problem for her own mother. "I'll never forget my mum coming to visit me on the set of 'Caligula'" she tells Safer. "Sitting on the set with these enormous phalluses on either side of her...chatting away to everyone. 'Oh, what a lovely costume you're wearing. There's not much of it, is there?''' Mirren remembers her mother saying. "[My mother] was great. She said, 'It's your job.'"
|