Helen Mirren ducked a question at the Berlin film festival as to whether it had been appropriate to cast her as former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir in a feature drama during a promotion event ahead of the film’s world premiere.
Having faced criticism for taking on the role amid a debate about authentic casting, with leading British Jews such as Maureen Lipman and David Baddiel suggesting Jewish roles should be reserved for Jewish actors, Mirren turned to her director, Guy Nattiv, to respond to the question from The Guardian.
Nattiv defended his decision to cast the British actress, insisting he had never doubted that she was fitting for the role.
“I can tell you from my point of view as a Jewish Israeli director, when I met Helen, I felt like I was meeting a family member, an aunt ... a Jewish person, because, for me, she had the Jewish chops to play Golda,” he said, as Mirren looked on.
“She totally got everything, every nook and cranny in this character. For me the fact that I adore Helen and I think she’s one of the best actresses in the world, I just found her very authentic.”
Lior Ashkenazi, her co-star then asked to give his take on the question, as Mirren smiled in his direction,
“Let’s say this was a movie about Jesus Christ,” he said. “Who’s going to play him? A Jew or a non-Jew?”
As the room of journalists and film critics broke into laughter and shouts of ‘bravo’, Mirren quipped: “Well it won’t be me,” triggering further laughter.
Nattiv added that he had been surprised at the negative reactions to his choice of Mirren, explaining that in their discussions about the film, Mirren had told him “something very smart. She said: ‘OK, let’s say only Jews can portray Jews. But what about Jews playing non-Jews?’ So it’s like limiting us in such a way. I think that Israeli and Jewish actors have no limitations. They have no problems to portray roles around the world,” he said.
Nicholas Martin, who wrote the screenplay, said that Meir’s grandsons who were in Berlin for the film’s launch, had been “absolutely thrilled that Helen played their grandmother and I think that counts for a lot”.
Nattiv said he had spoken this week to Gidi Meir, her grandson, who had told him: “Absolutely it was my idea to have Helen. It was a no-brainer.”
Mirren said she had forged the “deepest of admiration” for the woman dubbed the ‘Iron grandmother of Israel’, who she described as being “extremely brave”. She said she had felt a connection between the roles of Meir and Elizabeth I.
“In a weird way, it was a bit like playing Elizabeth I in the sense of ... her utter commitment to her country and to her nation,” she said. “The absolute total dedication of her life to that and what she achieved without being the sort of mad dictatory-type character at all.” She said she had also been “very maternal and she absolutely loved kitchen equipment ...The latest mixer or whatever, I have that in common with her. I always have to have the latest piece of kitchen equipment.”
The film is set against the backdrop of the dramatic days of the Yom Kippur war of 1973 when Meir and her all-male cabinet were taken surprise by the attack by Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian forces.
