Dame Helen Mirren has criticised Israel for “doing wrong” while addressing publicly for the first time how she was subjected to a verbal tirade on a London street by a stranger who branded her an “evil Zionist b****”.
Speaking at a film festival in Sicily, Mirren – who has previously been vocal in her support for the Jewish state and its right to exist – stated that “evil forces are rising everywhere”, including in Israel, and appeared to liken the country’s military actions to the Shoah, decrying “crimes against humanity”.
The actor, 80, who has in the past spoken out against cultural boycotts of Israel and who portrayed Golda Meir in the 2023 biopic of the former Israeli prime minister, was heckled while walking in the city after dark with her husband, film director Taylor Hackford, 81.
Footage of the incident, which occurred in November and recently surfaced online, shows Mirren smiling and asking the man if he is “okay” as he approaches the couple while recording them.
The unidentified man then states: “And there is Helen Mirren, the avowed Zionist. You said Israel should last forever because of the Holocaust.
“And she was very happy the Palestinians’ houses were gone. You are an evil Zionist b****. And you [Hackford] as well, f*** you and all.”
Mirren can be seen turning away, while Hackford, whose best-known for films include The Devil’s Advocate and An Officer and a Gentleman, tells the man to “f*** off”.
The actor, who has travelled to Sicily to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Taormina Film Festival, broke her silence about the encounter, telling journalists she was “attacked by mistake by a man who was maybe a little over-passionate or maybe mentally not quite stable.”
In comments first reported by industry publication Variety she said: “Evil forces are rising everywhere, even in a country like Israel.”
And in a remark seemingly likening the humanitarian crisis in Gaza to the Holocaust, she added: “How could you possibly repeat the actions of what was done to you as people to other people?”
“I have such great friends from Israel,” Mirren continued.
“The artistic community in Israel, the intellectual community in Israel, are so remarkable. I was born at the end of the Second World War, I grew up in Europe post Second World War and the realisation in my parents’ generation of what had happened in the Holocaust was so profound, so important. Therefore, the creation of Israel was a very important moment, although maybe it was done in completely the wrong way, in the wrong place, I don’t know. But something had to happen after the horror.”
Mirren added that she has “many Jewish friends” and revealed that her first two boyfriends were Jewish. It was with one of those men that she travelled to Israel as a young woman, where she worked on a kibbutz shortly after the Six-Day War of 1967, she said.
Reflecting on her time there, Mirren mentioned that she “saw some things that disturbed me from the inside in Israel”, but she did not provide details.
Referencing her performance as Russian empress Catherine the Great in the 2019 miniseries of the same name, Mirren said: “Why was Catherine called ‘the Great’? Because she took land. Why was Alexander ‘the Great’? Because he took land. He invaded, he killed people, he destroyed cities and he took land. Why is he remembered in history? Because with incredible brutality and unbelievable cruelty, he took land.”
She went on: “So it devastates me. That’s what I mean. The evil is always lurking, waiting to take over, even in a place like Israel.
"I played Golda Meir and worked in a country that was the idealistic Israel, and I always thought it was a country that would never do wrong, but of course they were doing wrong, even then.”
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