HUFFPOST REPORTS: Dame Helen Mirren leant on her new film The Debt's themes of treachery, deception, betrayal and shadows of history, to reflect on her infamous bikini picture that went round the world, musing that, "I think the thing that will haunt me for the rest of my life is that bloody photograph of myself in a bikini."
Mirren was with her fellow cast and crew in London ahead of tonight's premiere of the tense spy thriller in which she plays a former Mossad agent whose past mission to track down and bring to justice a Nazi fugitive will have vast repercussions for her in the present.
Appearing with co-stars Tom Wilkinson and Jessica Chastain, Mirren remarked, ""In and of itself, it is a lie because I don't actually look like that and I know that that is going to haunt me forever and I'll be forever trying to bury it unsuccessfully."
Official up-and-comer Chastain (11 films in four years - "like buses", according to The Debt director John Madden) plays Mirren’s character Sarah as a young woman in the film, and was full of praise for the way Mirren helped her prepare – mannerisms, Israeli accents and all - to ensure a seamless join between the two parts.
“It was just amazing to be around her,” gushed Chastain, while Mirren and Wilkinson both reserved their highest admiration for the chance to work on location in Israel and for their Oscar-winning director Madden, to whom, according to Mirren, “you don’t say no.”
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