Just Helen Mirren in a bubble bath, spilling stories about confronting Keith Moon, and a bear
Promoting F9 from a warm tub is the least Dame Helen deserves
TV News Helen Mirren
If there’s one thing that all of us will most definitely not miss once this pandemic is officially and blessedly over, it’s, well, everything. But in that number will be the sight of slightly out-of-focus celebrities attempting to time their late-night chit chat to the inevitable lag and stutter of socially distant Zoom calls. Sure, we do get to see just where in their palatial homes famous folks choose to stage their beamed-in talk show appearances, but no amount of set-dressed knick-knacks or nonchalantly spotlighted smart person books can really keep the by-now ubiquitous remote interview from looking like all the others.
You know, unless you’re Helen Mirren, and you decide to sit back in a luxurious bubble bath while doing the rounds promoting your role slumming delightedly in the latest Fast And Furious film. That’s where the Emmy, Tony, and Oscar winner chose to sit back and field questions from a giggly Jimmy Fallon on Thursday, explaining serenely that she might as well speak from her “favorite place in the world.” Now, first of all, it does look like a truly spectacular tub, nice and deep, with a chocolate marble rim, pot of pink orchids by her head, and a fluffy-looking towel rolled carefully at the ready. And if Dame Helen wants to tease Fallon (and us) by saying she’s “running out of bubbles,” as she demurely fluffs up the ridge of obscuring suds under her chin, well, that’s Dame Helen for you.
Of course, there are a few drawbacks to being interviewed by Jimmy Fallon while in your tub. For one thing, the sound of Fallon calling the legendary thespian “Bud,” is akin to biting into a lovely burrito and discovering a stray piece of tin foil. But, still, Mirren placidly soldiered on, telling the Tonight Show host how she’d begged, moaned, whined, and even “cried a little bit” in order to get F9 paterfamilias Vin Diesel to let her shift gears in his big-cars-go-vroom franchise. (Hey, Diesel likes a Dame classing up the joint.) Plus, as Mirren delighted in relating, she’s had a long and eventful career doing things even odder than exchanging banter with Vin Diesel while performing a pit maneuver in front of Buckingham Palace, as the requisite F9 clip showed her delightedly doing. (This is Mirren’s third F&F go-’round, so Diesel finally let Mirren drive a damn car.)
Bringing along a pair of memorable real-life confrontations to her soapy guest appearance, Mirren first reacted to Fallon showing the widely gawked-at clip of the international treasure sternly telling off a curious and very real black bear outside the Lake Tahoe home she shares with her husband, the thoroughly fortunate director Taylor Hackford. In the clip, Mirren starts out, as would most of us, anxiously tapping the glass door through which the curious bear in clearly contemplating entering—and then opens the door to order the enormous creature, in her most commanding tone, “Go on, bear. Naughty bear.” (The bear left, thankfully, looking appropriately chastened.)
Well, bears are one thing, but Mirren also shared the perhaps more unpredictably perilous occasion when she was forced to tell a “completely blasted” Keith Moon that, actually, it probably wasn’t a good idea for The Who drummer to accompany Mirren onstage for the finale of her long ago, Janis Joplin-inspired London musical theater performance. Telling Fallon that infamous partier and bearishly capricious Moon appeared “out of a rubbish bin that he’d fallen into” (which sounds pretty bearlike, honestly) to bang on her dressing room door, Mirren expressed some regret that, this time, she didn’t let the interloper just come in to do whatever he was going to do onstage alongside her to close out that night’s performance of David Hare’s Teeth ’N’ Smiles. Sadly, 1975 Helen Mirren was “very English” about the whole thing, telling Moon, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Which is a lot more polite than simply shouting, “Naughty Moon! Off with you.”
39 Comments
A “giggly Jimmy Fallon”; is there any other kind?
didn’t Jane Fonda just discuss her bear encounter? Mirren has one up’d. I hope Jude Dench is next, while actually battling a bear.
In other news, Susan Sarandon fed a raccoon in her yard.
she’d set fire to those racoons in her garbage while also holding a sign that blames policy for racoons not having enough food.
Somewhat related, there was a great Florida Man story a few years back about an old guy who doused a raccoon in gasoline and set it ablaze for stealing fruit from his mango tree.
😀 😀
I thought that was David Eddings, and all his manuscripts, and lighting some paper to see if his Jag was out of gas?
I had a coworker a number of years ago who left food on her back porch for stray cats, which she would befriend, kidnap, and take the vet to be neutered. The only downside of her ironclad plan was that the cat food on her porch attracted raccoons and a family of skunks. If you’ve ever wondered “Will a stray cat patiently wait its turn at the food dish?” The answer is “Only if there’s a skunk ahead of it.”
Please tell my Aunt Doris Todd says hi, thanks for the birthday card and yes, I’m totally going to call you!
Dame Maggie Smith would just say “Stop that” and the bear would slink off, apologising profusely.
Maggie Thatcher would park an aircraft carrier up on that shit and then celebrate a useless pyrrhic victory.
The bear was doing his Keith Moon bit, which to be fair does sound more like a pretty Hellenic.
HM in the 1960s. Yes please.
I kinda feel that if you have that shot, at any age, you take it.
HM in the any time ever… Yes, please.
That.I’d be in a three-piece tux and feel underdressed.
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Reason #472 that Kinja is terrible: on most websites a posted photo gets larger when you click on it. Not with Kinja though. If you click on Helen Mirren’s photo up there you get the exact same photo, but this time with a black background!ETA: you know what? I think the photo might even get smaller!
I love these kinds of photos; not sure if it’s a 60’s thing or what…but they always look like they know something you don’t.And I desperately want to know what she’s thinking. Wink wink, nudge nudge!
Just Helen Mirren in a bubble bathSOLD.
Keith Moon wasn’t a bear?
That would explain a lot, actually.
The Grateful Dead had a pig, didn’t they?
The Grateful Dead had a pig, didn’t they?A Pigpen for sure.
“One of the scariest things that ever happened to me was that Keith Moon decided he liked me”- Joe Walsh
Helen Mirren was on the British Top Gear and drove around their track & as I remember did not have a terrible time. This is a better interview though
She’s cute, and rooty-toot-toot, I bet she smells like Juicy-Fruit,
She’s gear, I’d buy her a beer…
1960s Helen Mirren? Absolutely. Which is exactly the way I feel about Right Now Helen Mirren. I mean… hot damn.https://i.insider.com/4e37fa19ecad045a10000019?width=600&format=jpeg&auto=webp(Would post pic directly if I could, but Kinja’s being Kinja.)
Would hit it.She is the hottest 75-year-old that I know of.
Dibs on sloppy seconds!I thought about deleting this three times and still clicked return.
…and now we’re pulling a train on Helen Mirren. Remember, this started as family fun with giggly Jimmy Fallon. (He’s the Jimmy who doesn’t cry every 15 minutes.)
Choo choo!
Oh, come one. It’s not like Fallon has never participated in a gang bang. How do you think he got his talk show job in the first place…by being funny?
Certainly not that!
I don’t think the crowd had any idea who Keith Moon was. She told this same anecdote, and it is a good one, on Conan’s how in 2008.
Rest in peace, Keith. We miss you.
Well kids, The Who (or ‘Thee ‘Ooo’, as they were known to their fans in Merrie Olde England) were a ‘Mod group’ whom you may think of as the 98 Degrees to The Beatles’ Backstreet Boyz and The Rolling Stones’ ‘N’Sync. They are best remembered for the booze and drug-fueled antics of percussionist, Keith Moon, whom recent reports assert may have actually been a bear; as well as the ground-breaking Popera “Timmy”, which cleared the way for Jefferson Starship, who in turn paved the way for Jefferson Airplane.
and of course, all roads lead to Grand Funk!
AVC headlines are now officially the stoner fantasies nobody has the guts to talk about in Pornhub.