Helen Mirren appears on Tonight Show in a bubble bath
Actor spoke about ‘F9’ and chasing a ‘naughty bear’ away from her house in the interview
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Helen Mirren made a virtual appearance on The Tonight Show this week – but instead of sitting in front of the usual book shelf or in the grand lounge of a palatial celebrity house (as many stars have during the pandemic), she was in a bubble bath.
The Oscar-winning actor and F9 star explained to host Jimmy Fallon that she wanted to do the interview from her “favourite place in the world”.
And so, from the tub, she told Fallon and his audience stories about the latest Fast & Furious film and her encounter with a black bear.
Mirren plays Magdalene Shaw, the mother of Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw, in the franchise. She admitted she initially got the role by begging star Vin Diesel for a part. “I was shameless. I begged, I whined, I moaned, I cried a little bit, I pulled every trick that I could possibly pull,” she recalled. “And he very, very kindly acquiesced.”
The actor also talked about a black bear that she encountered outside her Nevada home during quarantine. She said she shooed the bear away and called it a “naughty bear”.
Mirren previously revealed that the incident happened shortly after she had read a wildlife pamphlet that instructed readers what to do if they spotted a bear behaving aggressively.
“They said you make yourself look as big as possible, if you can grab a stick, make yourself look big, and then shout, ‘Bad bear!’” she said.
F9 will arrive in UK cinemas on 24 June.
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