‘We underestimate older people’: Actress Helen Mirren is glad to see seniors’ lives in the spotlight
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(From left) Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan in The Thursday Murder Club.
PHOTO: NETFLIX
LONDON – British actress Helen Mirren, one of the stars of The Thursday Murder Club, a movie about a group of retirees who enjoy cracking unresolved murder cases, says it is great to see older people’s life experiences celebrated on screen.
In the Netflix mystery, which premieres on Aug 28, the 80-year-old plays former spy Elizabeth Best. She and her other impressive retired friends – played by Irish actor Pierce Brosnan, and British actors Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie – find themselves with a real murder to solve.
“We underestimate older people. I did it when I was 25,” Mirren says at the film’s premiere in London on Aug 21.
“It’s absolutely right that young people feel as if the world is theirs and nobody’s ever done what they’re doing before. But the reality is, of course, every generation has done everything that they’re doing.”
Directed by American film-maker Chris Columbus, the crime comedy is based on English novelist Richard Osman’s 2020 best-selling novel of the same name.
British actress Helen Mirren at the UK premiere of The Thursday Murder Club in Leicester Square Gardens, central London, on Aug 21.
“I don’t plot at all,” Osman says of his writing process. “I have a rough idea of what might happen. I have a little twist somewhere, but I write a chapter at a time and see what happens.”
One of the screenplay writers, Katy Brand, says the movie mixes “serious, heartfelt warmth” and moments of silliness, humour and satire.
“This whole sort of genre that we have in this country of the sort of Sunday night crime drama... where amateur sleuthing goes on, but it’s also got mischief to it.”
As for the future, with three more novels in the series already out and a fifth instalment from Osman planned for autumn, he hopes there will be more films.
“Certainly, if it does well,” he says. “I think the cast had such an amazing time last summer filming this. So, I think they’d like to spend next summer filming another one as well. Fingers crossed.” REUTERS
The Thursday Murder Club debuts on Netflix on Aug 28.
