Helen Mirren Pays Tribute to Alma Reville

Helen Mirren Pays Tribute to Alma Reville, Alfred Hitchcock's Wife and Indispensable Collaborator | Artinfo:


From the article:

Helen Mirren and Alma Hitchcock

Mirren explained why she wanted to play Reville at a press conference at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival on Saturday. She was drawn to “Hitchcock,” reports Screen Daily, not only by the opportunity to work with Hopkins for the first time and the “fabulous script,” but the substance of the part.

“It was a really great role,” she said. “Alma was one of the great unsung heroines of film. She was extremely proactive in the making of Hitchcock’s masterworks and he himself paid her all the credit in the world. It was great to bring Alma out of the shadows.”

Mirren’s praise for Reville tied in with the speech she gave when accepting the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema at the festival’s opening ceremony the night before. “I’d love to see more women writers and directors,” she had said. “I never complain about roles for women in drama, I complain about roles for women in life. Today in 2012 is a very different picture than it was ten years ago, and I hope in another ten years the picture will change again.”