Global Showbiz Briefs: Mirren Beats Down Drummers, Champs-Elysées Hosts Cinema
Dressed As Queen, Helen Mirren Dresses Down Drummers
There really is nothin’ like a Dame. Helen Mirren won an Olivier Award last week for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in Peter Morgan’s The Audience. But Saturday night’s performance led the Oscar winner to use some not-so-royal language when dressing down a troupe of drummers who were passing by the West End’s Gielgud Theatre. “The drumming just slowly got louder and louder and then settled right outside the stage door,” Mirren told The Telegraph. Unable to hear her co-star and sensing the audience couldn’t either, Mirren “literally walked straight off stage, straight up the stairs and straight out the stage door and banged my way through the crowd who were watching and said, ‘Stop, you’ve got to stop right now’ — only I might have used stronger language than that,” she told The Telegraph. “I’m afraid there were a few ‘thespian’ words used.” The Times quotes her saying, “I think they must have thought I was some completely batty old bird.” The “very sweet” drummers stopped immediately, and Mirren says she’d like to invite them to see the play.
Champs-Elysées Fest Turns 2
The Champs-Elysées Film Festival will celebrate its second year June 12-18 in Paris with Olivier Martinez acting as president. The fest opens with the Chris Colfer-penned Struck By Lightning, which Eurozoom releases in France the following week. The fest closes June 18 with Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini’s Girl Most Likely, with stars Kristen Wiig and Darren Criss in attendance. Nine U.S. independents will screen in competition: Jocelyn Towne’s I Am I, Sean Garrity’s Blood Pressure, Daniel Patrick Carbone’s Hide Your Smiling Faces, How To Make Money Selling Drugs by Matthew Cooke, Any Day Now by Travis Fine, Coldwater from Vincent Grashaw, Steven Bernstein’s Decoding Annie Parker, Eliza Hitman’s It Felt Like Love and Stuart Bloomberg’s Thanks For Sharing. French and U.S. short films also will screen, including student projects from the AFI, Columbia, NYU and USC. French premieres include Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha; Arthur Newman with Colin Firth and Emily Blunt; Oren Moverman’s Rampart; and Broken City with Russell Crowe, Mark Wahlberg and Catherine Zeta-Jones. There also will be a retrospective of Brad Pitt movies ahead of the July 3 release of his troubled zombie tentpole World War Z.
Related stories
Hot Trailer: Kristen Wiig’s ‘Girl Most Likely’
Tobey Maguire And Kristen Wiig To Star In IFC’s Will Ferrell Mini ‘Spoils Of Babylon’
Helen Mirren Crowned Best Actress At 2013 Olivier Awards
Get more from Deadline.com: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Newsletter
