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Helen Mirren tells PEOPLE she’d “pay a lot of money” to work with Pierce Brosnan “for the rest of my life”
The pair both appeared in the 1980 movie The Long Black Friday, but didn’t share any scenes together
Now they both star on the Paramount+ series MobLand and in the new Netflix movie The Thursday Murder Club
Helen Mirren has a special place in her heart for Pierce Brosnan — so special, in fact, she’d even shell out cash to work with him.
The two both appeared in the 1980 crime drama The Long Good Friday, but didn’t have any scenes together. Fast forward a few decades, and they’re sharing the screen on two projects: the Paramount+ drama MobLand and the Netflix movie The Thursday Murder Club.
For both actors, the experiences have been worth the wait.
“We just mirror each other in our attitude to enjoying our work, being serious about our work, committed to our work, but at the same time, not allowing the work to sort of overwhelm everything in your life. He’s a very special person, Pierce,” says Mirren, 80.
“He was the most wonderful revelation to me. I would pay a lot of money to work with Pierce for the rest of my life actually,” she continues.
On MobLand, Brosnan, 72, and Mirren play Conrad and Maeve Harrigan, the husband-and-wife heads of a ruthless London crime family. They show off their lighter sides in The Thursday Murder Club as Elizabeth and Ron, retirement home residents who solve cold case murders with their small circle of friends.
For his part, Brosnan has been having a wonderful time filming with the Oscar winner.
“I love working with Helen,” he says. “She is captivating in every sense of the word, as a woman and as an actress. Having seen her work from afar for so many years and then to be in the brilliance of her creativity as an actor is spell binding.”
On MobLand, “we would sit every morning at 6 a.m. in the makeup trailer, side by side as Conrad and Maeve,” he continues. “We never really discussed much of what we were going to do that day, or any day really. Just the knowing that there was work to be done, it was all so easy. And yet full tilt when the curtain went up on every take. We had fun together. There was trust.”
Sophie Mutevelian/Paramount+
Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan in “MobLand”
The Paramount+ series has also given Mirren the chance to stretch as an actor. “I’ve never played anyone like Maeve, and I love it. It’s the absolute opposite, the most extreme opposite from playing the Queen as you could possibly imagine,” she says, referencing her Academy Award-winning turn as Queen Elizabeth in 2007’s The Queen.
“Although funnily enough, Maeve is another kind of a queen, but so manipulative, so venal, so ambitious,” continues Mirren. “She’s just a wrong-on, as they say, but she’s got energy and agency and those are the roles you want with it doesn’t matter where the energy or the agency come from, as long as that’s what they’ve got.”
Maarten de Boer
Mirren will have the chance to play around with Maeve — and share the screen with Brosnan — some more. Paramount + announced in June the series was renewed for a second season.
MobLand is now streaming on Paramount+. The Thursday Murder Club streams on Netflix on Thursday, Aug. 28.
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