Prime Suspect

An interview with star Helen Mirren
Edited for Applause Online by Mary Eileen O'Connor

Helen Mirren has been delivering uncanny performances since age 18, when she played a captivating Cleopatra in a youth production of Antony and Cleopatra.

Many Shakespeare parts followed with the Royal Shakespeare Company, along with unforgettable roles in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover with Michael Gambon; The Madness of King George; Gosford Park; and dozens of other films.

Mirren co-stars with Robert Redford in The Clearing, due out in 2004. And she recently created a stir in Calendar Girls, as the ringleader of a group of British housewives who pose nude for a charity fundraiser.

Now Mirren returns to the role that first won her an Emmy and made her household name in the United States -- that of Jane Tennison in Masterpiece Theatre's "Prime Suspect" series, airing Sunday, April 18 and 25 at 9 p.m. on WHYY TV12. Mirren recently talked about the worldwide success of Prime Suspect, why she stepped away from the role and why she is still drawn to the gritty and flawed character of Jane Tennison.

You thought long and hard about returning to the role of Jane Tennison after seven years. Were you concerned about bringing Jane back?
Well before I did any Prime Suspects, I never really thought too deeply about the character... I just kind of let the character happen to me in a way. I did the same again this time round but it wasn't until about the third or fourth week of shooting that I started to feel back at home with the character. I think I was in a state of internal conflict with myself at the beginning, and it wasn't until the third week or so that I started to feel more relaxed and actually remembered who the character was.

I just worried that I was going backwards and I don't like going backwards. Don't get me wrong, I very much wanted to do this. I thought very deeply about it. It's a great role, a beautifully produced film, with great writing and fellow actors, and the quality is very high so there was no reason not to do it.

Is something like Prime Suspect still a fairly rare item, even in England?
Well, I think good writing is rare. Good - I hate the word "product" - but you know, good dramatic television is rare. And it's rare because it's very difficult to achieve.

We tend to spell things out less in Britain. We do give ourselves the luxury of having a four-hour story. We don't have to tell the story in an hour or even two hours. You know, we're given four hours to tell our story, so we can achieve the kind of complexity that other programs can't because of the requirements of time.

How would you define what kind of woman Jane Tennison is?
I don't psychoanalyze the character too much. She's obsessed; she's work-driven, not really ambitious...it's quite hard to define, very much like real life in the way that you don't quite know what you want out of life. You only really discover more about yourself when you look back on your past and you suddenly see yourself in perspective and you realize your motives for doing things.

So it's the same with Jane, I've always allowed her to just 'be.' Obviously it's seven years later, so she's clearly older and wiser -- or not as the case may be! I just allow as far as I can to let the world and myself around me impinge on the character and allow that to come through -- I try not to act too much, quite honestly!

To what do you attribute the success of Prime Suspect?
I don't know - it's like lightning in a bottle and you can't define it, you just don't know why... but I guess if we did, then every television drama would be wonderful!

Prime Suspect also appeals to a wide audience abroad too...
I think that the first Prime Suspect had a very strong impact -- the storyline was very strong. The fact that there was a female lead too...although there had been female leads before, such as Cagney and Lacey, they were never from that edgy, dark serious kind of drama. So I think that made an impact and when viewers like something, they want more. They like what's familiar.

It then became like a brand name, instantly recognizable and really valuable, particularly on American television. Some really good television gets made in America and other countries, but it doesn't always grab the audience quickly enough and I think that's the key: to get the attention straight away.

So has it been fun returning to the role of Tennison?
Yes it has, absolutely. I was rather sad when it finished. I never thought I would actually say those words, but I really was.

Do you consider Tennison this your signature role? And is that a good thing or bad thing? Do you feel proprietary toward it? Are you happy no one in this country has ever tried to play her?
Well, you know, I think many people have done versions of Jane Tennison. She's only a female police officer, after all, and we've had many of those. And each person who does that brings their own characteristic and their own personality to the role, and it becomes whatever it becomes.

Jane Tennison just happens to be the one that I did. No, I don't feel proprietary towards it. One of the reasons I stopped doing it was I felt that I was becoming too identified with it, although I'd always done lots of other work in film and theater and television. But that's the price of success. But it was the reason that I stepped away from it for seven years, because I really didn't want to be knocked over by a car and my obituary just talk about Prime Suspect.

Would you do another Prime Suspect?
This one is a hard act to follow. And I only want to follow it if we can find another script that's as strong and relevant as this one.