Helen Mirren Denies Royal Rudeness
When a subject is lucky enough to be summoned by the queen, one ordinarily drops whatever one is doing to oblige. Unfortunately, last week, one was otherwise indisposed.
The Queen's reigning Oscar winner Helen Mirren has blasted reports that her rejection of a private dinner invitation from the real Queen Elizabeth II was meant as a snub, instead, the actress says, she was unable to dine à royal deux because she was otherwise engaged on a film set in South Dakota.
"I was honored to be invited to dinner at the Palace," Mirren said in a statement Wednesday. "This was a gracious gesture and very appreciated by me. It was therefore hard to have to decline. I was contracted on that date to be working in South Dakota, in a situation which was impossible to change.
"I would have made every effort to attend if it had been humanly possible. I explained this to the Palace officials, and I believe they understood. I would never have the hubris or the rudeness to insult anyone who had the kindness to invite me to dinner."
Let alone to the woman she devoted her Academy Award to.
Mirren's statement defending her negative RSVP to HRH was issued in response to a report in Britain's Daily Mail, which accused the 61-year-old dame of turning her back on her cinematic namesake and claimed that aides of the real monarch had viewed her decline as a snub, figuring that the film's production company would have given Mirren time off should she have explained the nature of the invitation.
As it is, the meal, which was to be attended by both Mirren and director hubby Taylor Hackford (Ray), was set to take place last Tuesday, on the eve of her majesty's jolly old trip to the colonies.
The project that kept Mirren from accepting the invitation was National Treasure: Book of Secrets, a sequel to the Nicolas Cage adventure. For its part, the film's production company also issued a statement taking blame for Mirren's no-show.
"The National Treasure: Book of Secrets production company regrets that it was unable to release Ms. Mirren from her shooting schedule in order to accept the honor of dining with Queen Elizabeth last week," publicist Michael Singer said in a statement. "All attempts were made to accommodate Her Majesty's request but a very challenging and uncompromising production schedule in South Dakota, complicated further by poor weather conditions and locked-in locations, made this impossible.
"Ms. Mirren has only the greatest admiration and respect for the Queen, and is truly sorry that prior commitments to the production prevented her from accepting the Queen's kind and prestigious invitation."
Royal aides first made public mention of a possible meeting between Mirren and the monarch back in February, after the thesp took home the Best Actress Oscar (and just about every other award out there) for her role in The Queen and paid homage to the film's namesake in her acceptance speech.
According to the Daily Mail, the Queen's schedule is planned nearly a year in advance, however, aides are said to be working to come up with alternative dates for the dinner.
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