H
elen Mirren the Queen reigns again. Her new film “The Last Station” is about Russia’s great novelist Leo Tolstoy. Oddly, its background mirrors her own. Mirren’s father was a tsarist nobleman and her birthname is Helen Vasilievna Mironov, give or take a spelling.
“I play Tolstoy’s wife, and there are great similarities to my own life,” she said. “The Russian existence, its class of intellectuals, Tolstoy’s coming from the lower aristocracy, the whole setting and background and the country’s class-ridden era coincides with my own. My grandmother was a Russian countess. I’ve been there four times. And I read Tolstoy in my late 20s. That’s the time to read him. I recall ‘War and Peace’ takes a little extra time.
“But my connection to the subject is not the reason I accepted the role. This story is wonderful. I’d have done it if it was set in China.
“And the story is completely true to everything. In those days all these characters wrote diaries, which are now accessible to us all, so this tale we tell, with its different views, is sort of like ‘Rashomon’ but absolutely authentic.
“We couldn’t make this in the Mother Country because the film was financed by the Germans, so we had to shoot in East Germany but that, of course, worked.”
I’d heard somewhere that Helen Mirren was entertaining the idea of writing a book about sex. “Please!” she screamed. “No! Sometimes you make an offhand comment to someone somewhere and it gets handed down. But I would someday like to do a book. A whole different kind. A novel. I love the process. It came so easily to me when I sat down to write something, and took me by surprise because I didn’t know I’d enjoy it so much. But writing about love and sex? Not until I’m dead.”
“The Last Station” opens nationwide Friday.
HUGH Jackman. Big hit with his “X- Men Wolverine” stuff. Big hit on stage with Daniel Craig. Big hit in assorted flicks. Big hit as one of People’s sexiest. Big hit as Tony Awards emcee. Big hit years back as Peter Allen in B’way’s “The Man From Oz.” Considering it’s been at least four days since he’s been a big hit somewhere, he’s antsy. Sending word he’s looking to do another Broadway musical.
THE Hampton Sheet’s Joan Jedell complimented non-fashion plate Woody Allen on his jacket. Replied Woody: “It’s the only one I have.” . . . The “All the news that’s fit to print” newspaper saw fit to print this news in its cafeteria after some pasta salad eaters felt poorly: “We don’t know if the illness is food-borne or airborne, but the Department of Health is onsite and has permitted us to reopen the cafeteria.” . . . Matthew Modine, who admits nobody loves his paintings despite how hard he tries to give them away: “I paint every day. I did Al Pacino‘s portrait. He told me he didn’t like it. I think he threw it away. I also did Whoopi Goldberg‘s. I don’t think she kept that, either.” . . . Alicia Silverstone, totally devoted to the furry, feathered, scaly, woolly and leathered: “No respect for creatures here. Selfish and greedy, we just use, abuse and compete to be on top.” Animal lover Alicia opens on B’way in “Time Stands Still” the 28th.
REGARDING the city’s food cop Mike Bloomberg, now cutting down salt to cut down on high blood pressure, etc., let it be known that:
Japanese eat very little fat and, thus, suffer fewer heart problems than we do. Mexicans eat lots of fat and suffer fewer heart problems than we do. Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart problems than we. Italians drink lots of red wine and suffer fewer heart problems. Germans drink beer and eat sausage and suffer fewer heart problems. Conclusion: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what does you in.
THE Feds decide in less than 60 days when the terrorists go to court here. Our NYPD then has 45 days to get ready. The good news? That is, if there’s anything good anyone can find in this, is that the Feds pay the cost of the trial . . . It’s coming Valentine’s Day. Sweet stuff. Downtown’s longtime glorious French restaurant Capsouto Freres rates as serving the greatest soufflés in the USA . . . A new exhibit’s at the Museum of the City of New York: 100 old Look magazine photos — Brando as he shot to stardom in “Streetcar,” Dali sightseeing NY, a nude Rocky Graziano. The show’s titled “Only in New York” and how do you like its title? . . . So what happened to Levi show-us-your-Johnston? Girls loved him, gays loved him. Handsome, young, sexy, semi-articulate, full of himself (plus other things he’s full of), hungry for some sort of cockamamie career other than rapping Sarah Palin. So? What happened???
TD, that green bank that Regis and Kelly hustle, has a branch on Ford ham Road in The Bronx. The other 8:05 p.m., just as it was closing, no other customers around, a guy in dreadlocks arrived. He asked to make a deposit. They said OK. He handed them a $10,000 check. Said he planned to put $3.5 million into this savings account. He’d just won $60 mil in the lottery.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.