MIRREN ‘MOVED’ BY FAMILY LINK TO RUSSIA
DAME HELEN MIRREN became emotional after stepping onto the set of THE LAS= T STATION - because the actors dressed in period costume reminded her of = her own Russian ancestors.
The veteran actress - who was born Ilyena Vasilievna Mironov - plays th= e wife of Russian writer Leo Tolstoy in the upcoming drama, and admits th= e experience of filming in Europe held extra meaning as she had just fini= shed investigating her Russian roots on her father’s side.
She recalls, "I’d just very recently gone through an amazing experience= going back to Russia. With the help of a journalist in Russia, I discove= red my family’s estates in Russia. My sister and I also visited my grandm= other’s gravesite. I had visited that cemetery a couple of years before, = but I had no idea where her grave was, so I just wandered around, incredi= bly moved just to be where she was buried. And then the journalist found = the grave.
"The most amazing thing is having just experienced all that, walking on= the set and finding myself looking like and walking into one of my famil= y photographs, with all the extras dressed exactly the way the people are= dressed in my grandfather’s photographs, myself dressed as my great-aunt= s were dressed in my grandfather’s photographs. That I found very very mo= ving." And the 64 year old insists she felt welcomed into the country: "It was= an amazing trip. To a certain extent, yes, of course, absolutely (I felt= like I belonged in Russia). But I am half British, so I certainly belong= here (in the U.K.) as much as I belong in Russia."
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