Helen Mirren - Dame Helen Mirren Struggled With Tempest Script

contactmusic

21 September 2011 19:11

Picture: Helen Mirren Screening of 'The Debt' held at the Tribeca Grand Hotel - Outside Arrivals New York City, USA -....

Dame Helen Mirren Struggled With Tempest Script

Dame Helen Mirren struggled to memorise her lines for the big screen adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest and took two months tackling the "hardest" task of her career.

The veteran British actress tackled the traditionally male role of Prospero in the 2010 movie, but quickly realised she had taken on a mammoth challenge when it came to remembering the words.

The Queen star admits that despite her extensive stage work in classical productions, sifting her way through the script was a struggle.

She tells The Huffington Post, "Learning The Tempest was the hardest thing. I knew I had to learn the whole thing before I shot any film, so I learned the whole play. It took me about two months of solid learning every day. You just sit down and do it.

"It's time consuming, you just go over it and over it and over it. Eight-year-old children learn the Quran by heart. The human brain has the capability of doing it. It's just a matter of knuckling down and doing it."

Contactmusic