Helen Mirren has called the fight scene that takes place in her new film 'The Debt' "The Geriatric Fight;" the espionage thriller hit UK screens yesterday (30/9.)
The 66 year-old actress has proved time and again that age is no barrier when it comes to furthering acting diversity and 'The Debt' is no different, pitting Mirren in her first ever on-film fight scene. "For a very long time girls weren't allowed to have fight scenes, it just didn't happen," opined the former Academy Award nominee, "Now they can and Angelina Jolie does them all, but for a woman of my age a fight scene is pretty rare."
Continuing to the Bbc, Mirren laughed "I called it 'The Geriatric Fight' - when you go down it's very hard to get up again. We wanted it to be very realistic, they are both old but they are fighting to the death." In the same interview, the star revealed how she and Jessica Chastain - who plays a younger version of Mirren's character in the film - met to discuss character continuity; "We spent an afternoon just discussing little elements . Jessica did a lot of hard work watching film of me. I've been doing press for such a long time so there is stuff on YouTube of me at a young age doing TV interviews."
Chastain however found the experience a little more nerve wracking, telling The Daily Mirror "She's a Dame and, like, amazing. I was a little intimidated hanging out with her. There were moments where I was telling myself, 'OK, speak up. Don't be too shy.'"