Russell Brand gives Dame Helen Mirren's thigh a squeeze.
The two are sitting comfortably next to each other on a sofa in a Beverly Hills hotel, and the Oscar-winning actress - looking elegant and sexy as usual in a black dress - indulges the comedian for his bit of mischief with a bemused sideway glance. It's a similar response her character of Hobson might give Arthur, the immature billionaire in the remake of the 1981 comedy of that name.
In the new film, which opens Friday, Brand has taken over the title role, which was created by Dudley Moore. Mirren is the nanny who has stayed on to take care of the ever-adolescent long after he has reached puberty. It is a sex change for Hobson, though, who was in the original a butler, played by John Gielgud. The late, great British actor won a supporting actor Academy Award for the role.
While Mirren and Brand had worked briefly together on "The Tempest," they didn't really know each other before "Arthur." The film's director, Jason Winer (TV's "Modern Family"), says that on the second day of rehearsals Brand was being unusually timid when Mirren smacked him on the arm and said, "Stop respecting me."
"But now look at this," Brand says, smiling slyly after giving Mirren the squeeze on the thigh. "I'm familiar with you physically, and we're in a hotel room. And respect has been replaced by love."
"But can you respect someone and love them?" she asked.
"You do actually. I do feel
those things for you," he replies."Yes, of course you can," she admits.
Obviously, since those early days the two have clearly developed an easy rapport that allows them to kibitz like that. Of course, we know that Brand is married to sexy pop star Katy Perry, while Mirren's husband is director Taylor Hackford ("Ray").
The actress says she was persuaded to do the role of Hobson after talking with the comedian, who is looking quite foppish today. "I defy anybody to spend two hours with Russell and not be totally charmed," Mirren says.
Brand, who is also an executive producer, didn't require any persuading at all. He was a huge fan of the original movie. "I think it's one the great comedy drunk performances."
The comedian says he watched the film a number of times even while he was making the new one because it was a good resource.
Mirren took the opposite tack. She remembers how great Gielgud was in the role and knew she would be "intimidated" if she watched it again.
Checking out IMDb.com, I noticed that Mirren and Gielgud had been in one movie together, the infamous and racy "Caligula," the 1979 movie with lots of sex and some big-name actors, including Peter O'Toole and Malcolm McDowell, and was curious if they had known each other then.
At the mention of the movie, Brand playfully jumps in. "That's one of those things that you're always asked about now," he says with glee as Mirren smiles ruefully. "People really care about `Caligula.' "
I almost feel guilty having asked the question, but Mirren graciously explains that she and Gielgud had no scenes together in the film - which she describes as having "nuggets of a good movie but is mostly crap." She eventually did get to meet the acting legend years later.
Changing Hobson to a woman, however, required some rethinking. "You can't have a sexy nanny around the house. That would just muddy up the waters," notes Brand. "So we had to sublimate and subjugate Helen's natural sexual magnetism in cashmere and wool and all-too-sensible shoes so that even the queen would reject this frumpy woman."
"You really wanted to cast the queen, didn't you?" interjects Mirren, who won her Oscar playing Queen Elizabeth II.
"Well we couldn't get her. She doesn't act," says Brand. "She won't speak unless spoken to. There are all sorts of rules. She shakes hands with gloves on. So once Her Majesty was eliminated, we went to the next best choice - Helen Mirren, the other HM."
Of course, the role of Arthur required some rethinking, too. At the end of the original, Moore's character got the girl but was still a drinker, and that no longer flies. Brand, 35, has had his own well-known battles with substance abuse over the years and cracks that to get the role of Arthur right, he did two decades of research.
"The difference, of course," adds Brand, "is that Arthur is a fictional alcoholic and has much more latitude for clowning and fun. And often his adventures don't end up involving broken glass and howling women."
So in the new movie Arthur's alcoholism is dealt with. "There are a few serious scenes involving Alcoholics Anonymous, but hopefully they are undercut by humor," says Winer.
Mirren doesn't think that Brand and his fictional character have anything in common.
"I think there was once, but I think those times are long gone," says Mirren. "I never knew Russell in those days, but I think Russell is probably a more complex person than Arthur is and probably smarter."
Brand says that falling in love with Perry has helped transform his life. "I think the first thing that you do when you fall in love is that you recognize that you're not the most important person in the world. And your focus becomes another person."
On the set, the comedian had too much regard for Mirren to try to throw her off while improvising scenes, but the actress claims that she could never keep up with Brand anyway.
"The kind of improvisation that Russell does is to really riff on a subject like a jazz musician. It's an extraordinary thing to witness," says Mirren, who left her hands and footprints in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre last week. She calls the honor "incredible," having visited the movie landmark when she first came to Hollywood.
Brand says she's being modest about her improv skills and that the actress would alter the bedtime stories Hobson read to Arthur by making them "incredibly erotic."
"Obscene really," Mirren chimes in.
"Disgusting," Brand agrees.
Eventually, though, the "Arthur" show will come to an end, and I wondered what the two had planned next.
"What shall we do next, Russell?" the actress asks.
"Get another room in this hotel?" he suggests. Then being somewhat serious, he adds, "I might do that film `Rock of Ages' with Tom Cruise and Alec Baldwin. Helen, I imagine, will be Joan of Arc or something."
"I'll be darning my husband's socks," says Mirren.
"Darning your husband's socks?"
"I love darning. Do your socks need darning?"
"Yes, I love that. I'd love to wear socks darned by you."
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