Helen Mirren’s favourite western movie: “It’s just incredible”
Having appeared in Shakespeare productions as well as the Fast and Furious franchise, Helen Mirren has undoubtedly developed a filmography that can attract fans across all demographics. It is this versatility that has made Mirren a constant source of inspiration for actors all around the world, especially those who love the theatrical world as well as unashamedly loud action flicks.
Although she started her career by garnering attention and receiving an invitation to the Royal Shakespeare Company, Mirren wouldn’t get her big cinematic break until John Mackenzie’s 1980 gangster movie The Long Good Friday. Starring opposite Bob Hoskins, it’s still regarded as one of the highlights of the genre and conveys the sociopolitical tensions of the late ’70s extremely well.
Despite the wide-ranging diversity of Mirren’s body of work, there’s one genre that the acclaimed actor has publicly claimed to hate on multiple occasions: westerns. While the masterpieces from the likes of John Ford and Sergio Leone continue to find younger generations of audiences all around the world, such narratives never really appealed to Mirren.
That is, of course, until she agreed to sign on to Taylor Sheridan’s spinoff series 1923, based on the award-winning western drama Yellowstone. Featuring alongside Harrison Ford, Mirren delivered a strong performance as a matriarch of a family trying to survive the difficulties brought on during the Great Depression’s early years.
During a conversation with Rolling Stone, Mirren was asked about her decision to join a western drama despite her dislike of the genre. The actor revealed that it had less to do with the fact that it was a western and more dependent on her love of Taylor Sheridan’s works, which motivated her to accept a new kind of challenge.
“I loved Taylor Sheridan’s films,” Mirren said. “I loved Wind River. I knew that it wouldn’t be the normal kind of western, the kind that I don’t usually like. Which, I have to say, is an extremely old-fashioned idea of a western — the sort of 1950s version where the women were either teachers or madams at a brothel, and there was nothing in between.”
According to Mirren, she is a fan of westerns that deviate from the conventional frameworks of the genre and manage to create something new, which is why she cited Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight as one of her all-time favourites. “I thought it was fantastic,” she added. “That’s my kind of western, with characters that are incredibly flawed and interesting and violent. You know, the survivalist nature of The Hateful Eight, it’s just incredible.”
With a star-studded cast and a menacing cinematic atmosphere, The Hateful Eight was definitely a passion project for Tarantino, and it shows. As the filmmaker’s career draws to an end, the 2015 work might just receive a reappraisal as one of his best efforts pretty soon.
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