Helen Mirren, who is in Sicily as the recipient of the Taormina Film Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award, has opened up about her relationship with her Mobrando co-star Tom Hardy and the recent verbal attack she received in London from a man who called her an “evil Zionist bitch”.
In late May, Mirren took to Instagram to show support for her Mobland co-star Tom Hardy amid unconfirmed reports that the actor would be fired for unprofessional behavior on set. Variety confirmed that talks are underway to find a way for Hardy (who plays gangster Harry da Souza on the Paramount+ drama) to return.
Asked by Variety if she would continue working with Hardy, Mirren replied: “Of course. Really soon.”
“I love Tom. I think he’s the greatest actor,” she continued. “Different actors have different processes. I’ve learned over the years that some people get to things faster. As long as what’s on screen is great, I’m totally chill about whether someone gets there or not. Tom is a very special person. I think he’s definitely a great person. My support for him is pure and heartfelt.”
Mirren said she hoped another “Mobland” series would air and praised the “powerful” creative team behind the show. “When you have strong artists working together, the creative process is challenging. As we say, people are going to get their pants in a twist. We’re absolutely going to move forward, and it’s going to get even better.”
Meanwhile, in a video shared online on May 28, Mirren was seen walking in east London with her husband, Taylor Hackford, when a man branded her an “evil Zionist bitch”. Mirren, who played Golda Meir, Israel’s first female prime minister, in the 2023 drama film Golda, has previously said she believes in “Israel.”
Asked about the attack, which occurred in November last year but has resurfaced online in recent weeks, Ms Millen said: “I was attacked by mistake by a man who was a little too passionate or not very mentally stable.”
The Oscar-winning actor called on journalists to be careful about what they read and see online before clarifying their position on Israel. “Evil forces are rising everywhere, even in countries like Israel,” she says. “How can you repeat to others what you did to yourself as a human being?” she added, perhaps referring to the Holocaust and the current war in Gaza.
“I have great friends from Israel,” she continued. “The Israeli artistic community, the Israeli intellectual community, is very remarkable. I was born at the end of World War II, grew up in post-World War II Europe, and my parents’ generation’s awareness of what happened in the Holocaust was very profound. So the founding of Israel was a very important moment. Maybe it was done in the wrong way and in the wrong place, I don’t know. But something had to happen after the horror.
Millen said she “has a lot of Jewish friends” and that her first two boyfriends were Jewish, including a British man she traveled to Israel with when she was young and worked on a kibbutz just after the Six-Day War in 1967. She briefly mentioned that she “saw some things” in Israel during the conflict, but did not elaborate further.
Mirren later added, “When you play Catherine the Great, why was she called Catherine the Great? Because she took the land. Why Alexander the Great? Because he took the land. He invaded, he killed people, he destroyed cities, he took land. Why does he go down in history? Incredible brutality and incredible… That’s what I mean: Evil is always lurking, waiting to take over.”I played Golda Meir, and I was working in a country called Israel, which I always thought would never do bad things, but of course they did bad things. ”
