A01. HRN-593
In: 22.36.27 Out: 22.39.14
Sound Bite: Helen Mirren
Yeah well I worked with a voice coach who was brilliant and came at the voice, the voice is difficult because its been parodied so much especially in Great Britain, everyone’s always sending up the Queens voice. So you didn’t want it to sound like a parody, it had to sound natural and real and I had a great voice dialogue coach that I worked with. Of course there’s a lot, I was lucky because there’s an awful lot of her speaking but a lot of what we hear is her making speeches and she actually has a different voice hen she makes a speech to when she talks normally. So obviously watching all the tapes, reading the books, many different biographies, by pro-monarchy people and anti-monarchy people and then you find a consensus, somewhere that where they both agree and you think well there must be a truth in that. And then you look at that and then you try and go beyond that truth you know into the emotional, not emotional but the real deep physiological place that this person is at, is in. very hard because you know we have, I mean there is no way that you can comprehend what that must be like. First of all the reality that you’ve had absolutely no choice, I’m sure when you’re a kid you’d of thought ‘I’d like to be fire engine, a policeman, no and the media or I want to be an actor, no. I want to be a presenter and you found your way to where you are. There was choice in the matter, she had no choice, there was absolutely no choice. You had to walk steadily, stead fastly into this cage and then the cage is unbelievably luxurious but it’s a cage and you will never ever walk out of that cage until the day you die. So you know its so hard to put one’s head into that kind of psychology and that is where you had to go. (talks) the quiet physical quietness. But you know what’s fascinating about the queen there’s this incredible self containment about her, years and years of practice and that’s all, but there’s always you see her hands are like this you can see she’s playing constantly with her ring, like this. So there’s this little tiny, showing it to the camera, energy, little fast, little beat going on inside going like this, how long can I stand this for, I’ve got to stand her smiling and you know. It’s like no wonder she lo0ves animals and horses so much it must be such a relief for her.

A03. HRN-593
In: 22.39.47 Out: 22.40.37
Sou4d Bite: Helen Mirren
I was in America. I just remember this feeling of absolute disbelief because you know I take a thousand dollar bet that any day of any week for the ten years before Diana died in any country in the world, at any newsstand, you could walk up to it and find a picture of Diana at that Newsstand, she was so ubiquitous, she was everywhere. She was constantly in our lives in one form or another, I mean visually. And I that moment of her dying was incomprehensible. I mean I was in America as I said and I think that was good, I was very happy that I wasn’t in Brittan because I think I would have found that very confusing and upsetting.