Women’s Hour News Podcast (BBC). 21 Sept 07 Episode: Helen Mirren - 13:59

Choose the most appropriate answers for the 10 first minutes of this audio.

1. Why is Helen Mirren interviewed in this occasion?

Because she has just been awarded a prize

Because she has just published a book of memoirs

Because her ancestors were Russian

2. Why has 2007 been so special to her in terms of acting?

Because she was awarded a prize

Because her fame helped her to find her Russian ancestors

Because she got amazing roles to play

3. Why does she consider the book a memoir and not an autobiography?

She doesn’t say that. She knows it’s an autobiography.

Because it is a collection of memories

Because after looking at some photographs, she starts writing about her life

4. Her distant relatives were…

Aristocrats and military intelligentsia

Upper-middle class and militaristic intelligentsia

Her grandmother was a countess but the rest died of starvation

5. Why does she change the order of the expression “rags to richess”?

Because it doesn’t apply to what she is describing

Because she thinks her relatives were rich

Because her relatives were rich and then became immigrants

6. What was her grandfather in Britain?

An immigrant

A taxi-driver

A socialist and an atheist

7. What was her father all his life?

An immigrant

A taxi-driver

A socialist and an atheist

8. What kind of school did she go to?

A state school

A religious school

A language school

9. By the way, what TV series is she starring?

Elizabeth I

Elizabeth II

Prime Suspect

Back from LA collected an Emy for the best actress in TV series Prime Suspect

Elizabeth I, II, Prime Suspect – 1 year – extraordinary – fantastic roles – high profile roles

Keep awards where – half-way up the stairs, lost track of some which got packed away

This autobio, not an autobio, it’s a memoir, a series of memories with lots of photographs

What made you do it like this? Photos-read-photos – process by readers and actresses, intense way to look at pic. Kind of cool to do a book that encouraged that.

It’s revealing, more personal.

First picked the pics

Writing around the pics

Russian Ancestry – Russian aristocratic family – pics

Research journalist in Russia-Moscow – apartment of distant relatives I didn’t know, even of me as a child that my grandpa had sent

I had a couple

Back? – great-grandma countess, not artist, but upper middle-class people, intelligenzia, militaristic intelligenzia

When she finished the book she travelled to Russia, great grand children of great aunt, who survived starvation Stalinistic era

Rags to richess

Richess to rags

Grandfather spoiled, elegant, arrogant upper class member, and finished up as a taxi-driver not many years later

They had to make do and survive

Many immigrants come out of poverty and that’s the reason why they’re leaving, and they work and they do well and achieve

In my family it went the other way

Thanks to the embracement and education system

Her father was a passionate socialist, an antifascist. He was a communist, really.

But he was v young, a left-wing socialist all of his life. Abandoned communism when he found out about the abuses. Disappointed. Britain 1920’s v. different. The rise of socialism, unionism. It was necessary. They were moving quite vehemently towards facism

Parents atheists, she went to a religious school. Parochial schools are very good

Limited in its outlook because of its religious limitations, but a good school. Learned 3 languages.

Who inspired her to be an actress? A teacher in that school who recognized (she didi drama at school) Mr Wellding. She suggested I should apply to join the National Youth Theatre and that was what launched her career. 9.44min

RIC – experimental theatre. Africa. That must have turned your classical training on its head. Contributed to the ability you have to play these extraordinary complex characters?