Although Dame Helen Mirren is clearly an elegant lady who knows her way around a red carpet, she also knows a thing or two about putting the pedal to the metal in her upcoming film “Fast 8” co-starring Vin Diesel.
In fact, she makes an appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” on Monday where she gives the hospitable hostess a lesson in car lingo.
“Do you know what double declutching is?” she asks DeGeneres.
Mirren explains, “It happens in a non-automatic car. A double declutch means, the kind of cars we have in Europe where you have to move the clutch around. Shifting, yes. It’s a way of taking the revs of the engine up or down. You go into neutral, you bang on the accelerator to bring the revs up, so you can get quickly into the high gear, and then you are away much faster.”
Mirren’s exact role in the action film is currently unknown, but she is a known car enthusiast and insists on doing her own driving in films.
“Fast 8” will speed into theaters on April 14, 2017.
The Oscar winner also puts to rest buzz that she tripped and fell while walking the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival this past May. In actuality, her close encounter with the ground was a random act of kindness that just so happened to be captured by paparazzi.
Here’s the true story: As Mirren ascended the staircase to be greeted by the president of the film festival at the top, she looked down and noticed that one of his shoelaces was untied… and that’s when her maternal instincts kicked in.
“I get very worried when people have their shoelaces undone because you can fall down and really hurt yourself if you step on your own shoelace. It can take you down,” she told DeGeneres. “So as I walked up, I said, ‘Oh your shoelace is undone, let me do it up for you.’”
Mirren very gracefully sank to her knees, she explained, “and started doing up his shoelaces, at which point I forgot that all the paparazzi were out there.”
Check out the video above for the full interview.