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

How did that philosophy apply to your relationship with the girls?

Well, that was very important to me. I think that's part of reason I didn't hang with Taylor on the set. I didn't discuss scenes with him afterward on the set any more than I would normally with him as an actress. I knew that I needed to have a relationship with those girls -- and I wanted to anyway, because it's so fun to be on the set with a load of women. Normally as a woman you're on set with a bunch of men. It's very rare that you have a load of girls to hang with and chat and gossip and have fun with. I was loyal to them, basically, and I protected them. They were in a vulnerable position, you know? There they are -- they're actresses playing roles, but they're playing hookers. And they're in that environment. I was very concerned about protecting them -- protecting their rights and protecting their professional status, if you like. I did say to them right at the beginning, "If you have any problems about anything, you come to me and I will make sure that they're dealt with." So I made that kind of relationship with them right from the beginning.

Did that ever happen?

Yes, it did, when we were shooting the boxing scene. Obviously there are a lot of extras, and they couldn't understand the difference between a prostitute and an actress. They thought that maybe these girls were the real thing. They started... not abusing them, but treating them in a different way. And the girls came to me. There were a couple of guys who were being rather obnoxious, so I talked to the A.D. and made sure they were protected from that.

The extras? Seriously?

Yes! There are quite a lot of extras in a boxing scene, obviously.

That's nuts. Speaking of boxing, you're also working with Sergio Peris-Mencheta is his first English-language role as the boxer Bruza. How did tat relationship develop over production?

Well, it was hardly a challenge at all, because Sergio is so generous as an actor. And hard-working -- the work that he put into this role was absolutely spectacular. He changed his body, he learned how to box, he learned English. He knew a little bit of English when he came, but not much. So he was acting in a foreign language, which is incredibly difficult. I mean, he was spectacular. You see the end result, with is easy and natural and sweet. That performance would be wonderful if he could already box and if he already looked like that and his English was good. The fact is he had to get himself to that point. And it was the work behind what you saw on screen that made it so extraordinary with Sergio. He's just a natural talent, which we all saw when we first read him.

Another thing Mr. Hackford and I discussed last week was the difficulty male directors often have directing their wives or significant others in love scenes -- not all of them survive to tell the tale. What's your take from in front of the camera?

There was no problem. Actually I would take issue with how you set that particular question up, which is that not a lot of directors survive that. All directors survive that.

I guess I was thinking of--

All directors survive that. If they have their wives or their girlfriends or whatever in a film, they know exactly what they're doing, they know why they're doing it, and they all survive it. And I suspect they all do it the same way, which is the way Taylor did, which is to be completely and utterly practical about it! The fact of the matter is that when you're on a film set, you're not in the bedroom. You're on a film set. There are make-up people touching you up. There are light people, there a camera crews with their tape measures, measuring how far you are from the lens. There are hair people coming in and retouching your hair. There are all of these people around. You're not in a remotely intimate setting, you know? So intimacy is the last thing that happens on that kind of film set. So obviously the director has no problem.

Well, there was--

I would say if anything, it would be harder for a director to put his wife -- or her husband -- through a very traumatic, emotional scene -- and watch them have to break down and be traumatized. That would be much more difficult.

OK. Got it. So... The trailer for Red came out last week, featuring you in full action-star mode. What's the story behind that role?

[Laughs] It was absolutely great. Ever since Moonlighting, I've been a massive Bruce Willis fan. I just think he's a great, great actor -- a wonderful character actor. On top of being a wonderful character actor, he's a great movie star. You don't often get that kind of combination. So I was just thrilled to get to be in a film he was in, and to get to play scenes with him, obviously. It was really fun. You know, it's lovely to do intense, low-budget movies like Love Ranch is. And it's also great to do not-very-intense, very high-budget, fun movies like Red. I had a ball, I have to say.

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