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The day we met two dames and two gentlemen
(Los Angeles) — It is very rare that one gets to see two dames in one trip but that's exactly what happened when we went to Toronto.
Dame Helen Mirren and Dame Judi Dench were both in the Canadian City to promote their movies; Mirren for “The Leisure Seeker” with Donald Sutherland and Dench for “Victoria & Abdul” with newcomer Ali Fazal.
It was great that we finally caught up with the gentlemen, Sutherland and Fazal, too. We'd been bumping into them all over the place: in Los Angeles (California), in Venice (Italy) and finally, in Toronto (Canada).
In “The Leisure Seeker,” Sutherland and Mirren portray John and Ella Spencer, a retired couple who decides to go on a road trip in their Leisure Seeker vintage recreational van before his Alzheimer’s and her cancer can catch up with them.
It was so nice to see Mirren carefully fixing the hair of Sutherland before the photographers snapped their pictures together in Toronto. Both are witty and elegant.
When we asked Sutherland, 82, to describe himself, he replied, ”Donald Sutherland is tall, old, and sometimes flatulent. It’s a function of being old, you know? I try very hard but my wife is more flatulent than I am. She’s famously so. Yes. Donald Sutherland is, it’d make me shy to say anything other than deprecating. Donald Sutherland is self-deprecating.”
Mirren, 72, meanwhile, candidly described herself as...frightened. She said, “I'm permanently frightened. I found ways of dealing with it but I'm permanently frightened. It's ridiculous. I am frightened of everything really. Coming to talk to you, ‘Omigod what am I going to do?!’ So, frightened I would say. I know I don't look it but actually I am.”
“I am doing work with L’Oreal with young people in England to encourage them to find self-worth and just feeling good about themselves. I say to them, listen everybody is kind of insecure. Everyone is insecure in one way or another. I'm very suspicious of people who are not insecure. They have no imagination. That is their problem.”
Sutherland then described Mirren as “a terrific person in every respect. She does the red carpet well.” (Mirren, for our interview, was dressed in a mustard-colored Dolce Gabbana dress, and accentuated with a colorful choker.)
Perhaps reminding him of one of his favorite red carpet stories, Sutherland narrated “watching Robin Williams on a red carpet when the mayor of San Francisco that year authorized same sex marriage. There was one journalist on the red carpet who asked every single person what they thought about same sex marriage. Everybody was frightened. They didn’t know what was politically correct. They didn’t know what would affect their career. Finally, they came to Robin Williams and they said, Mr. Williams what do you think about same sex marriage? And he said, anybody who has been married knows it is same sex, same sex, same sex. That has wit. I just admire that immensely.”
Just like in their movie, Mirren pointed out that the secret of a long successful marriage is to maintain some personal privacy. She shared, “It's important not to know everything. It's important for people to have their privacy. I am not a believer in telling your partner everything about you. We're all individuals and of course, we can make wonderful partnerships with other individuals. But it doesn't stop you from being an individual.”
Dench and Fazal’s movie, “Victoria & Abdul,” tells the story of a young clerk from India, Abdul Karim (Fazal) who finds himself participating in Queen Victoria’s (Dench) golden jubilee celebration.
We talked to Dench and Fazal separately and we asked Dench, 82, what she thought of her co-star Fazal, 30, she revealed, “I discovered an instant rapport with him. We met a couple of days before we started filming and we met at lunch. It's that kind of thing immediately. There was no strain or unease. He has a great sense of humor. You suddenly find you talk the same language and so that cut a lot of corners off for us. He was also wonderful at teaching me Urdu (language) which is not easy to learn.”
Asked if she has someone in her life who is like Abdul who reminded her what life is all about, Dench disclosed, “When I was 80, my daughter took me shopping. Suddenly, in the middle of the shopping spree, she asked me, are you ready now to have a tattoo? I said yes. I had it on my wrist. What does the tattoo say? Carpe Diem. Seize the day.”
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Charming, friendly and eloquent, Fazal talked about what he learned from Dame Judi Dench. He said of his co-star, “I had to ask her for advice and she said just learn your lines and don't bump into furniture. Spencer Tracy and I thought it just fit. Summarized everything but I had some wonderful times with her. I cherish every day and I'm humbled. I couldn't have asked for more. I think myself lucky and it's good.”
Fazal stressed that he really treasures his friendship with Dench. “I'm so proud to say that I can call her my friend,” he confessed.
He added, “She has a great sense of humor. I think that was the beginning because I'm a stranger who walked in. We met at lunch and she's just given me the warmest hug. She didn't have to. But I thought that was just a great beginning to something, almost something that was happening off set which was pretty similar to what was in the movie.” — LA, GMA News
