Helen Mirren Talks Pixar, Guns And Being A Bad Ass

Dame Helen Mirren has been in the spotlight this week due to the premiere ofRed 2. The Oscar-winning actress, who plays an elegant assassin in the film, has been on a promotional tour for her new movie and has been asked about everything from Pixar, to guns, to what it was like playing such a bad-ass.

Mirren said that she loved playing a bad ass in Red 2 but added that she isn’t the biggest fan of guns.

The actress said: “Apart from my moralistic feelings about guns, it just looked like a lot of fun… They trained me on small handguns, normal handguns, Berettas and all the way up to the Gatling gun, through the sniper rifles and so forth. I had an experience of shooting with real live ammunition, which was fantastic, a real education. I love being a bad ass, it’s just the best… But the more I handle guns, the less I like them.”

Mirren said that she had a great time re-teaming with Bruce Willis and John Malkovich for Red 2 but said that her biggest accomplishment this year came through a different character. The actress said that it was a dream come true to play Dean Hardscrabble in the Pixar movie Monsters University.

Mirren said: ”One of my major ambitions was to be in a Pixar movie just to be a part of that library of incredible, classic, amazing films that will hopefully be watched for centuries to come. Because I think they have such universality about them, about human nature.”

The actress did admit, however, that her voice acting probably needs a little work.

The actress added: ”I’m actually hopeless at voice acting. I’d loved to have been in the room with Billy Crystal and John Goodman and watched the masters at work and learned from them.”

Red 2 opened this weekend with $18 million at the box office. The movie was far behind horror movie The Conjuring, which brought in over $40 million, but it was right in line with the original Red’s opening weekend of $21 million.

[Image Via Jaguar PS / Shutterstock.com]