Helen Mirren (‘Golda’) on playing Israel’s first female prime minister: She was ‘absolutely revelatory’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
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“I didn’t really know a lot about her,” reveals “Golda” star Dame Helen Mirren while discussing her role of Golda Meir, the first female prime minister of Israel. “All I knew is when she came to power it was an incredibly important moment for me as a woman to realize that women could be prime ministers. It was an unknown thing in those days. Now it’s completely accepted. But it was completely unaccepted in the era when Golda came to power. It was absolutely revelatory. It was an important moment for me to realize what women could do.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
The Bleecker Street film is directed by Oscar winner Guy Nattiv and focuses on the intensely dramatic and high-stakes responsibilities and decisions that Meir, also known as the “Iron Lady of Israel,” faced during the Yom Kippur War.
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“The thing that I never grasped until I did the film was the proportion of the population that were lost in the Yom Kippur War,” she explains. “A big part of the youth of Israel at the time were lost in the Yom Kippur War and it was profoundly traumatic for that very small nation. I hadn’t grasped the importance of the numbers. And she took note of every single person who was killed and took it profoundly to heart.”
The Oscar, Emmy and Tony winner underwent a physical transformation to play Meir. In addition to perfecting the prime minister’s specific American accent, she was layered in prosthetics and a wig to portray the most realistic version possible. “She was an extremely, visually distinctive person,” Mirren states. “Anybody playing Golda would have to change their look to a certain extent. No one quite looked like Golda. Her hair, her eyebrows, her body shape, her legs, everything was so distinctive.”
Mirren also discusses the role that launched her TV and film career and shares some of her most memorable awards moments.
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