Dame Helen Mirren has said she “absolutely” wants to see the return of free TV licences for the elderly.
The Oscar-winning actress told the Standard that “older people should have all the support that they can get” in later life.
She said: “I don’t think they need that money, quite honestly.
“People have lived their life, they’ve worked, they’ve paid taxes, they’ve brought up children, they’ve contributed to society on many, many different levels and I think it’s the least we can do quite honestly towards the end of people’s lives”.
She said last year she thought the licence fee has “had its day” - and the Government has confirmed it intends to abolish the fee in 2027.
But Dame Helen made it clear she does not wish for the elderly to pay while the future funding is decided.
She made the comments while discussing starring as Dorothy Bunton in her latest film The Duke alongside veteran actor Jim Broadbent.
The film is due out in UK cinemas on February 25, after its original release date was postponed due to Covid.
‘A comedy with a lot of heart’
The Duke is set in the 1960s and tells the true story of one of the most infamous art heists in British history.
Based on a true story, it is a “comedy with a lot of heart and a lot of feeling,” said Dame Helen in which she plays a “cleaning lady from Newcastle in the sixties”.
In the movie, 60-year-old taxi driver Kempton Bunton, played by Jim Broadbent, goes on trial at the Old Bailey for stealing a portrait of the Duke of Wellington by Francisco Goya from the National Portrait Gallery in London.
It was the first and only theft in the gallery’s 169-year history. The story of the stolen painting became headline news all over the world.
Kempton sent ransom notes saying that he would return the painting on condition that the government invested more in care for the elderly - he had long campaigned for pensioners to receive free television.
“His beef is that people have been through the Second World War and they come out of it and now old age pensioners are expected to pay for their BBC licence and he doesn’t think they should have to,” Dame Helen explained.
Eventually he decides to hand himself in, but after persuading the jury he is not a thief as he did not intend to personally profit from or keep the Goya, Kempton is only sentenced to three months in prison for the theft of the frame, which was never found.
It later turns out he had spun a web of lies and it was in fact his son Jackie, played by Fionn Whitehead, who had stolen the painting. Four years later, he confessed - much to the chagrin of the police.
Standing alongside Kempton throughout the film is his long-suffering wife, Dorothy, who keeps the family afloat while Kempton writes away in the back bedroom or is off campaigning, and later in prison.
“The Buntons, they’ve been together for a long time and they’re making their marriage work but there’s always been problems… mostly created by the character of Kempton.”
Dame Helen said she was attracted to the role of Dorothy because it is a true story, “a fabulous, eccentric, unexpected sort of story”.
“It was beautifully realised in the script, just a lovely piece of writing”.
It is reminiscent of “those wonderful Ealing comedies of the fifties, of the Lavender Hill mob and Passport to Pimlico. I think it’s in that tradition of British filmmaking,” she said.
Acclaimed director’s final film
The Duke was the last film acclaimed director Roger Michell worked on before he died in September last year, aged 65.
Mr Michell directed Notting Hill, Venus and My Cousin Rachel.
Paying tribute to him, Dame Helen said: “If one had to have a final film, I think it’s a great film to be his final film. He was our leader, was the father of the family that was the film.
“I only got to work with him once in my life, I would have leapt at the chance to work with him again.”
Dame Helen also outlined some of the trickier aspects of filming under Covid restrictions.
She explained: “This film was done before Covid. I have shot subsequently under Covid protocols and depending on where we are at because the goal posts are constantly moving, sometimes it’s quite restrictive.
“The sad thing is that you never know what anyone looks like. You spend many hours a day with these people in real working circumstances and if you pass them on the street and they didn’t have a mask on you wouldn’t recognise them.”
“When people suddenly take their masks down it’s a completely different person to the person you expected,” she laughed.
“But human beings are amazing, they find their way around things and sort things out.”
