From glamorous silver fox-ette to Golda-girl

She's known for playing powerful women from Elizabeth I to Catherine the Great and the late Queen. But Helen Mirren's latest role, as Israel's 'Iron Lady' Golda Meir, is perhaps her most challenging yet. Not least having to smoke heavily and wear a cumbersome fat suit

- Gabrielle Donnelly

A REGULAR poster girl for on-screen silver fox-ette glamour, Dame Helen Mirren is currently to be seen in a very different light - dowdily dressed and overweight, with heavy jowls and frizzy grey hair, dark circles surrounding her eyes, a lit cigarette never far from her fingers.

But then the character she is playing - former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir - has little time to ponder her under-eye cream. Dame Helen's new historical film Golda shows in brutal detail the challenges encountered by the iconic "Iron Lady" of Israeli politics, as she faced the trials and responsibilities of leading her nation through the 1973 Yom Kippur War against a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria.

"She was an incredible person to enter into and experience from within," Dame Helen says of Meir, speaking just before the premiere of the film at the Berlin Film Festival. "I came away from it with the deepest admiration for her, and indeed, a love for her. She was extraordinarily brave and with a commitment to Israel that was total.

"To me, that was her driving, driving energy and force and spirit - the understanding that Israel must exist. That there must be somewhere for the Jewish people to be safe. In a weird way, it was a bit like playing Queen Elizabeth I of England - not because she had the regality or anything, but in the sense of her utter commitment to her country and to her nation."

Over the last couple of decades, Dame Helen, 77, has made something of a speciality of portraying powerful women. In 2005, she played Queen Elizabeth I on the small screen in the TV series of that name; a year later she was her descendant Queen Elizabeth II on the big screen in the movie The Queen, a role she followed up on stage with the 2013 stage play The Audience.