LIZ: Your fabulous memoir, In the Frame, so beautifully done, is out now. How is this book different from other memoirs and autobiographies? I kind of see it as a dame’s scrapbook.

HELEN: Yes, my memoir has just been published in the States by Simon and Schuster. It is really a scrapbook of pictures and writing, simply and in a nonlinear way talking about some of the people and events in my life that have resulted in where I am today. I loved writing it, and did it exactly the way I wanted to. I was very busy at the time working, so I had to just let it be what it was, and not agonize about it. It is absolutely my voice, unadulterated.

LIZ: Is there any difference in working in high-falutin’, culturally aspiring famous films and segueing into acting with Joe Pesci and playing a madam in what sounds like a rousing commercial effort? I mean, what’s your take on going "down market."
(P.S.) Helen, my godchild Spencer, age 9, thought this was a stupid question. He said, "Lizzie, actors have to act in what they are offered; they have to always be a new character. They can’t do the same thing all the time." He had recently played Wilbur the Pig in "Charlotte’s Web." And then he played a female school teacher in his next school play.
(DIVERSION HERE): Helen, I also wanted to tell you about Joe Pesci, who I adore, and the night he won the Oscar. I was backstage with press but he singled me out because he liked me and we chatted. Then he went in front of the backstage cameras and, with every single question they asked, he said the words "fuck, shit, cocksucker, motherfucker, cunt" in whatever he answered so they had nothing they could use. He is the greatest.

HELEN: Oh, gosh, Liz, nothing could be more "high falutin’" to me than working with an American film icon like Joe Pesci. The great thing about actors is that — be they Sir Ian McKellen or Joe or Sergio Peris Mencheta, or Christopher Plummer, with whom I am working right now — they all do the same thing. They put their heart and soul and blood and sweat and experience into trying to get it right. Also, this film may be placed in a legal brothel, but it is about love, and it has a wonderful, surreal heart to it. I don’t know about it being "commercial." Of course we want it to be seen by lots of people, and know that it has much to be entertained by in it, but I would not call it a "commercial" movie, much as I would love to!
(P.S.) Tell Spencer from me that he is absolutely right! I only wish more people in the business understood that. I love your story about Joe. It is absolutely typical. I also adored him; we got along really well together, and I loved working with him. He is not easy, but authentic and inspiring, and has a great heart.

LIZ: The great Katharine Hepburn disapproved of acting awards and thought they were ludicrous and unworthy. (She received four Oscars but others accepted for her.) Kate said only a level playing field could make for fair competition, as in all the actors playing the same role. What do you think?

HELEN: Well, of course she is right. It is often the role that is being awarded, not the performance, especially where women are concerned, as there are so few strong, complex roles that can put you through your paces. Hepburn was luckier in the era she worked in, when films were often made for the women in the audience. Also, now, of course, the whole "award" process has become both a marketing tool for the studios, and an entertainment. It is also a way for various organizations to raise their profile, and of course a time for the whole industry to celebrate and contemplate the year’s work.

LIZ: Helen, you have been extraordinarily naughty in a lot of films in the past and also on the British stage. You have sometimes taken off your clothes; you bared your breast recently in the calendar movie about middle-aged women, etc. Will you continue to shock or have you had it?

HELEN: Well, I personally have had it, and I am sure the audience has too, but you never know what might be around the corner. Remember the wise words of Spencer!