Academy Award-winning actress Helen Mirren on Wednesday told ABC News that she had to do serious research to prepare for her role in the American remake of the 2007 Israeli film "The Debt" ("Ha Hov"). Mirren, who plays the lead role of retired Israeli Mossad agent Rachel Singer, told ABC News "I did a lot of reading about the Holocaust to remind myself of how dark that time was and how important it is to the Israeli people
especially the young Israeli people of the 1960s. Many of them lost all of their families. It was still very fresh in their memories, so its an incredibly intense, emotional thing to have to live with. And I had to remind myself of that. "The Debt" tells the story of three Mossad agents who discover after 30 years that a Nazi war criminal they had been sent to kill is still alive. As part of her preparation for the role, Mirren traveled to Germany and visited the Buchenwald concentration camp. In the film, Mirren's character is haunted by her past. She is joined onscreen by actors Tom Wilkinson and Ciarán Hinds (known for his role as Julius Caesar in the BBC miniseries "Rome") who play the other two Mossad agents. The movie takes place in 1997, with intermittent flashbacks to 1967, when the three agents first embark on a secret mission to hunt down Nazi war criminal and notorious surgeon of Birkenau, Dieter Vogel (played by Jesper Christensen). As the story opens, the audience is led to believe the mission was completed. However, thirty years later, when Rachel's daughter writes a book about her mother's heroic hunt for the Nazi criminal; Rachel revisits the events of the mission and realizes it is not over. Asked why she wanted to make the film, Mirren told ABC News that, "It's a really good story that is based on a wonderful Israeli film. Its very rare that you get a really good, believable story in film nowadays, and I thought this was one of them." Academy Award nominee John Madden, who directed the film, encouraged viewers to buy tickets. They dont come along like this," he said of "The Debt." "This is a really fantastic thriller
a really provocative, dramatic story." The Debt is now playing in theaters across the U.S. Alon Rosenblum contributed to this report.
Helen Mirren studies to play an Israeli secret agent
British actress tells ABC News she did serious research on the Holocaust, traveled to a German concentration camp to gear up for her role as a Mossad agent hunting for a Nazi criminal in the U.S. remake of the 2007 Israeli film "The Debt."
Load more...