- Title: USA: Helen Mirren walks the red carpet for her latest film, "Love Ranch"
- Date: 24th June 2010
- Summary: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (JUNE 23, 2010) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF RED CARPET PREMIERE FOR "LOVE RANCH" (*** FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY ***) ACTRESS HELEN MIRREN AND DIRECTOR TAYLOR HACKFORD POSING ON RED CARPET CUTAWAY OF MEDIA HELEN MIRREN POSING WITH FRIEND DIRECTOR TAYLOR HACKFORD POSING FOR PICTURES MIRREN AND ACTOR SERGIO PERIS-MENCHATA POSING FOR PICTURES WIDE SHOT OF RED CARPET MIRREN AND HACKFORD SPEAKING TO REPORTERS (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTRESS HELEN MIRREN, SAYING: "They're people who faced up to often great difficulties in their own personal lives, and they've dealt with it, and they're finding their own way through it, and women go into this profession, and indeed men, in a different way, for multiple reasons, often they're escaping from an abusive situation, often it's purely economical, they need to put kids through school, or they need to pay their bills, sometimes they're there because they love it, and they literally have a vocation for it, and so I think it's really dangerous to sort of put a blanket title on any of them. I think what our film tries to do and what I would try to do is to always see, not see people as hooker, prostitute, whore, you know? Woman, girl, person, person with history, person who is alive and kicking and thinking and feeling and see them in that context." MIRREN AND HACKFORD TALKING TO REPORTERS (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR TAYLOR HACKFORD, SAYING: "Many radical ideas in this country all came from people in the west, because where they came from, in the northeast and the midwest, they had all their family around, all the people, all the institutions that said 'no, you can't,' when they came to the west, everything was possible." ACTRESS TARYN MANNING ON THE RED CARPET (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTRESS TARYN MANNING, SAYING: "I mean, she's an incredible woman. As a madame, she was awesome, I mean, she did a great job, she really, because we had a lot of issues on the set, like, there was a lot of competition with the women, and I feel like if this were a real brothel, obviously it was a set, that she would have had that power or essence to smooth out all the ripples, as she did with all the actresses on set." MIRREN AND HACKFORD ON THE RED CARPET (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR TAYLOR HACKFORD, SAYING: "One would expect it, this is America, you know, and we've done this piece that kind of flies in the face of traditional mores of the puritan ethic, but to me, it's real." (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTRESS HELEN MIRREN, SAYING: "But it's real, our job as actors and filmmakers and as playwrights, our job in the world of drama, it is a mirror up to nature, it's to say 'this is the world that you live in, look at it, be realistic about it, be human about it'. You know, don't be a hypocrite, don't blind yourself, just look at yourself, let's look at ourselves and the reality of ourselves, and that's part of what we try to do in this film, it's also a romantic love story." HACKFORD AND MIRREN WITH PAN TO WIDE OF CARPET
- Embargoed: 9th July 2010 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Usa
- Country: USA
- Reuters ID: LVAEZDS6NEVSSOULZYQLRL5N5KI0
- Story Text: British actress Helen Mirren has won an Oscar for playing Queen Elizabeth II and an Emmy for playing Queen Elizabeth I, but her role in her latest film is far from royalty. In "Love Ranch," Mirren plays a venerable madame who owns and operates the first legal brothel near Reno, Nevada in the early 1970s. The actress and her husband, Taylor Hackford, who directs the film, walked the red carpet in support of the film Wednesday evening (June 23) in Hollywood.
As preparation for the film, Mirren's husband Hackford, who first met her working as the director of the 1985 film "White Nights," made the Academy-Award winner stay at a brothel for research purposes, which helped to give her a new perspective of women who work in the world's oldest profession.
"They're people who faced up to often great difficulties in their own personal lives, and they've dealt with it, and they're finding their own way through it, and women go into this profession, and indeed men, in a different way, for multiple reasons, often they're escaping from an abusive situation, often it's purely economical," says Mirren. "I think what our film tries to do and what I would try to do is to always see, not see people as hooker, prostitute, whore, you know? Woman, girl, person, person with history, person who is alive and kicking and thinking and feeling and see them in that context."
"Love Ranch" is a fictional account of the couple behind the founding of the first legal brothel in the United States, the Mustang Ranch, by Joe and Sally Conforte, portrayed by Mirren and actor Joe Pesci as Grace and Charlie Botempo. The pioneering pair were instrumental in legalizing prostitution in Nevada in 1971, and director Taylor Hackford was inspired by their old-west style and sensibility.
"Many radical ideas in this country all came from people in the west, because where they came from, in the northeast and the midwest, they had all their family around, all the people, all the institutions that said 'no, you can't,' when they came to the west, everything was possible," says Hackford.
At the start of "Love Ranch," Mirren and Pesci's characters are seen as a tight business partnership running a lucrative business outside Reno. The pair have to deal with daily issues like customers taking advantage of the prostitutes and infighting amongst the women themselves, but while Charlie (Pesci) has his eye on other women, Grace (Mirren) has grown distant from him and has become the nuts and bolts of the operation. The foundation of their relationship is shaken when Charlie sponsors a heavyweight boxer from Argentina (Peris-Menchata) to Reno, and he offers Grace, diagnosed with cancer, a last chance at love.
Actress Taryn Manning, who plays a prostitute in the film, learned a great deal about her craft by watching Helen Mirren work.
"I mean, she's an incredible woman. As a madame, she was awesome, I mean, she did a great job, she really, because we had a lot of issues on the set, like, there was a lot of competition with the women, and I feel like if this were a real brothel, obviously it was a set, that she would have had that power or essence to smooth out all the ripples, as she did with all the actresses on set," says Manning.
In life as in the film, powerful community forces tried and failed to upend the practice of legal prostitution, and Hackford expects there to be some backlash to "Love Ranch" for its sympathetic portrayal of women who sell their bodies for money.
"One would expect it, this is America, you know, and we've done this piece that kind of flies in the face of traditional mores of the puritan ethic, but to me, it's real," says Hackford.
For Mirren, any question of morality is above her pay grade.
"Our job as actors and filmmakers and as playwrights, our job in the world of drama, it is a mirror up to nature, it's to say 'this is the world that you live in, look at it, be realistic about it, be human about it'. You know, don't be a hypocrite, don't blind yourself, just look at yourself, let's look at ourselves and the reality of ourselves, and that's part of what we try to do in this film," says Mirren.
"Love Ranch" saddles into theaters on June 30. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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