Helen Mirren on Love Ranch, Red and Protecting Her Castmates From Horny Extras

Of all the reasons to love Dame Helen Mirren -- her taste, class, grace, skill, discipline, fearlessness and ageless eroticism among them -- 2010 might be the year we get the best look at her versatility. Having already given us the outsized wife of Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station, the Oscar-winner arrives in theaters this week as the flat-accented, fur-clutching, no-nonsense brothel madam Grace Bontempo of Love Ranch. October will bring the action-packed intrigue Red, featuring Mirren's turn as a former CIA spook eluding an assassination rap alongside Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich. The jury's out on the latter film, but the long-delayed Love Ranch (directed by Mirren's husband Taylor Hackford) indeed provides a worthwhile study of grande dame by way of Nevada desert.

For the occasion, Mirren phoned up Movieline to discuss the film, working with her husband for the first time and going head-to-head with co-stars Joe Pesci (who plays her unscrupulous, adulterous husband Charlie) and Sergio Peris-Mencheta (making his American debut as her possible pugilist love interest) -- not to mention her thing for Bruce Willis and why her female castmates had an especial friend in her.

I spoke last week with Mr. Hackford, who confirmed what an unusually long time this film had been in coming.

It sure has. It's been quite a journey. My noble husband really fought to get this film made in the first place and then to get it out into the marketplace. We're all very, very happy that it's finally there.

He'd also mentioned wanting to collaborate with you for years. What's that like from the acting side?

I hadn't been longing to work with my husband. The only level on which I did want to work with him was in the sense that my whole professional career has been spent away from him -- in foreign lands, in different places, in London or in Hungary. When he's in Ecuador, I'm in Germany or something. Our professional lives have mandated that we spend a lot of time away from each other. So the main impetus for me to work with him really was to be able to be with him -- literally to be working and to be with him. Otherwise, if I was working, I wasn't with him. If I was with him, then I wasn't working. So it's lovely to be working with him and working.

How did it feel once you were on the set with him?

It was interesting, you know? We didn't talk or deconstruct it -- you know, "This is how we'll behave. This is how we'll do it." We just very naturally fell into our professional roles. I think if someone walked on to the set, they never would have guessed that Taylor and I were husband and wife if they didn't know. On the set, Joe Pesci was more of my husband to my mind. Do you know what I mean? That's what you have to do as an actor. You imaginatively engage in that world, not in the real world. I would spend more time on the set with Joe than I ever did with Taylor.

Your characters' rapport is intriguing -- obviously they couldn't be more different. What were you looking forward to about working with Joe?

I was very. very intimidated by the thought of working with Joe. Not because of his screen persona, but because of his iconic status as a screen actor. I was unaware of all the many facets that Joe has. Acting is only one of the many facets of Joe's life. I think he loves acting, but it's not his driving force the way it is with me. And incidentally, he's a fantastic actor to be on set with -- just really exciting and incredibly committed and extremely professional and just a remarkable actor all around. But I was very nervous.

Audiences historically react to his intensity with a certain awe, but how do you process that as an actor?

It's great! It's great; that's what you want as an actor. You want someone and something strong to be with. The worst kind of partner in acting is someone who's like a sponge, and no matter what you throw at them there's no real response. With Joe he's quick and he's immediate. He likes to get in there and do it; he doesn't like to rehearse too much, and I agree with him on that. He arrives prepared, but he wants to get in, use his energy, and get out.

What about him using your energy?

I don't know! I think he liked working with me. I think he liked a partner who could give as good as he gave, and no matter where Joe went, I was up there -- hopefully -- going toe-to-toe with him. [Pause] You know, it's very important that we create a partnership on-screen. And the way to create a partnership on-screen is not necessarily to rehearse and to work it out, but to try and create a kind of partnership off-screen. That, I think, is what we did, and that's why it kind of works on-screen. We're not each just working for ourselves. We're working forward with each other.

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