Helen told The Huffington Post newspaper: "When I was a very young actress I was sent for an audition with him. I don't think he would have auditioned me; I think he either thought you looked right or you didn't," Helen said.
Highlights
- Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren didn’t like director Alfred Hitchcock initially. Helen plays the iconic director's wife Alma Reville in new biopic Hitchcock, but she has revealed she once endured a disastrous audition for the filmmaker's thriller Frenzy in the early 1970s because she felt he disliked the way she looked.
- Helen told The Huffington Post newspaper: "When I was a very young actress I was sent for an audition with him. I don't think he would have auditioned me; I think he either thought you looked right or you didn't. I was arrogant and ignorant and, at that time, he was just not my kind of film director...
- "So, I didn't really like him, and I know he didn't like me very much. He certainly didn't cast me. He took one look at me and went, 'Oh, good God. She's going to be a nightmare' ... I didn't want to do it because all those roles were horrible anyway."
- Helen's co-star Sir Anthony Hopkins - who stars as Hitchcock in Sacha Gervasi's new film - also found the psychological horror expert to be rather unpleasant at times, and his extensive research to play the role led him to describe the director as "paradoxical".
- Anthony mused: "He can be dark, troubled, cold, ruthless and obsessive and also big-hearted, warm and ingenious. That was all part of his nature."
Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren didn't like director Alfred Hitchcock initially. Helen plays the iconic director's wife Alma Reville in new biopic
Hitchcock, but she has revealed she once endured a disastrous audition for the filmmaker's thriller
Frenzy in the early 1970s because she felt he disliked the way she looked.
Helen told The Huffington Post newspaper: "When I was a very young actress I was sent for an audition with him. I don't think he would have auditioned me; I think he either thought you looked right or you didn't. I was arrogant and ignorant and, at that time, he was just not my kind of film director...
"So, I didn't really like him, and I know he didn't like me very much. He certainly didn't cast me. He took one look at me and went, 'Oh, good God. She's going to be a nightmare' ... I didn't want to do it because all those roles were horrible anyway."
Helen's co-star Sir Anthony Hopkins - who stars as Hitchcock in Sacha Gervasi's new film - also found the psychological horror expert to be rather unpleasant at times, and his extensive research to play the role led him to describe the director as "paradoxical".
Anthony mused: "He can be dark, troubled, cold, ruthless and obsessive and also big-hearted, warm and ingenious. That was all part of his nature."