Helen Mirren always hesitates before taking on a 'real person' role

Helen Mirren knew she was “on a losing streak” when she signed up to play Patricia Highsmith in A Talent for Murder.
The 81-year-old actress takes on the role of the esteemed author in the Anton Corbijn movie, which documents New York publisher Edward Ridgeway’s last ditch attempt to convince her to write another instalment in her hugely popular The Talented Mr Ripley series.
While Helen was keen to star in the film, she told Deadline that she always has qualms about playing someone real.
She said: “I always say you you’re always on a losing streak playing a real person, because you can never be, at the most, successful. You’re only going to be 75% if you’re lucky, of what the real person is.
“So you’re never going to win, and in fact, for many years, I would not play people who were real in history, unless they were so far gone, like Elizabeth the First, Catherine the Great, that nobody quite knows what they sounded like or walked like.
“But people who the public are aware of. You know, you’re on a losing streak, really.”
The job of researching for the role was made even more difficult for Helen because there isn’t a huge amount of footage of Patricia, who died in 1995.
Helen mused: “Patricia Highsmith was very private towards the end of her life, very cut away, very locked away, which is sort of part of what our story is about. So, I don’t know how well known she was at that point.
“She disappeared from the scene somewhat and because of that, it was not that easy to research her because there wasn’t a lot of film of her, especially later on in her life, which which is when we’re looking at her.
“There wasn’t a lot of material for me to research.”
A Talent for Murder premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and is due for wider release on October 23.