1923 Alum Helen Mirren Compares Cara to MobLand’s Maeve: ‘Two Sides of a Coin, You Know?’ Plus: Her Take on That Harrigan Death

This is probably not the Mother’s Day that Maeve Harrigan envisioned.

In the latest MobLand, which happened to debut on Mother’s Day in the United States, Maeve was forced to watch one of her children die. Son Brendan was murdered with a chainsaw on Richie Stevenson’s orders while Seraphina screamed for mercy next to her half-brother; Richie had a livestream of the grisly event sent to Maeve’s phone. Seraphina, Conrad’s daughter by another woman (and therefore the focus of Maeve’s loathing), only survived thanks to some quick maneuvering on Harry’s part.

Given the horrible outcome, and the fact that Maeve set the whole thing in motion by offering Richie Seraphina as a sacrificial lamb, might the Harrigan matriarch have any regrets? We checked in with Mirren, and, turns out: not really! The conversation below starts out being about MobLand, meanders over to Mirren’s turn as 1923‘s Cara, and then winds up back with the unpredictable Maeve, who “likes to get down and dirty,” Mirren says with glee. Read on for the rest.

TVLINE | Helen, Maeve is bats–t, and I am in love with her.
HELEN MIRREN | Love the word ‘bats–t.’ That was a great description. It’s the first time I’ve heard it called ‘bats–t,’ and I love that. It’s a perfect description.

TVLINE | At the end of Episode 7, we find out that Brendan got chainsawed to death. Do you think Maeve, who put this all in motion, ever considered that her meddling might backfire — especially given that Richie doesn’t seem super trustworthy?
I don’t think she cared. [Laughs] Because she certainly wanted to get rid of her stepdaughter, and she kind of cared about Brendan, kind of.

In the immediate moment, [Brendan’s death is] a kind of devastation. She said, “Well, if I had to lose someone, it’s better that it was Brendan than anybody else.” I mean, she is batshit, as you say. She’s very, very — well, you know what? She’s a fantasy woman, really, and it doesn’t pay to talk about real human psychology. The thing that I love about MobLand is that it’s operatic. It’s like an opera, and you don’t really ask for, you know, Aida’s psychological background. [Laughs] I mean, “What’s her backstory?” [Laughs] It’s got that sort of magnificent grandeur and excess about it, and I’ve always loved that kind of thing. It’s why I started off as a theater actress and why I love playing Empress Catherine the Great of Russia or Elizabeth I of England. I loved the grandeur of those worlds, you know. And the Harrigan world has that sort of excessive grandeur.

I didn’t know it was going to be that when I signed up. Really, I had not much idea at all about who Maeve was or what she was going to be. I think we’d seen the first episode maybe, but Pierce [Brosnan] and I both signed on at the same time. We were working together. So, one of the great reasons why I agreed to do it, or I wanted to do it, was because I knew Pierce was going to be in it, and I loved working with Pierce so much. So, we didn’t really know what we were particularly walking into, and it revealed itself as we went along, and I have absolutely loved doing it.

TVLINE | Before we talk about anything else, sidebar: You and Pierce worked together in his first movie, right?
Well, we didn’t really work together. We were both in the same movie. [Editor’s note: The film is The Long Good Friday, which was released in 1980.]  He played a very small role, nonspeaking role — important little role, but nonspeaking — and I was never in any scenes that he was in. So, we never met on that movie at all. Later on, when he became James Bond and a lot of things… “Oh, he was in Long Good Friday,” I went, “was he? I don’t remember that.” Obviously, he’s gone on to have this spectacular career that he’s had, but no. The first time we’ve actually worked together was in The Thursday Murder Club that’s about to come out, a Chris Columbus film. We were working together, and I was loving working with him, when this came.

TVLINE | You and I have talked about 1923 a few times. It’s so interesting to me to watch you play Cara, and then see you play Maeve immediately after. Talk about polar opposites.
Polar opposites, as you say, but two sides of a coin, you know? Everything that’s good on one side, and everything that’s bad on the other side. Loyal, truthful, decent. Disloyal, lying, absolutely immoral. And they just both just happen to be Irish.

TVLINE | I’m trying to picture Maeve raising a baby that just gets, like, thrown in her lap. I can’t see it happening.
[Laughs] No, I can’t see it, either. She’d immediately hire help.

TVLINE | That said, I mean, both of those characters have a fearlessness about them. Though I think it might be born of different things.
No, no, absolutely right. That is the one thing that the two have: courage and fearlessness. Or rather, Maeve is fearless. Cara is aware of danger and fearful of danger, prepared to face it and deal with it, but I would not say she was without fear. She’s more sensible than that, really. Maeve is not sensible at all. She’s a complete, you know, “bats–t,” as you say.

TVLINE | No offense to MobLand’s Cara, but if she isn’t breathing by the finale, I would understand that. But when Cara and Jake both lived to the end of 1923? I felt a huge sense of relief! What more could we want?
Yes, it was great, wasn’t it? And neither Harrison [Ford] nor I were — because when you do these things, you don’t know, really, where they’re going to go. So, I loved that the sort of unexpected characters survive, and the ones you’d expect are going to survive, don’t.

TVLINE | Did you know, going in, that you would make it to the end?
No, I had no idea. I mean, I was perfectly happy. The way Taylor [Sheridan] does it is two [seasons], and that’s it, and I love that. Beginning, middle, end. So, the whole story has a proper drama feel to it. And I love the fact that it ended with me and Harrison. I love that.

TVLINE | I did, too. I do wonder how much Jake would be underfoot in Cara’s world at the end, after he steps back from the day-to-day of running the ranch.
Oh my god, I know. Oh, yes, it’s going to be very tough for Cara. [Laughs] “Get out of my living room! What are you doing?!”

TVLINE | Let’s end on MobLand. I know we’re not getting too deeply into psyche, but forgive me: Does Maeve have an endgame? Is she just bored?
Oh, no, she has an endgame. No, absolutely. She wants her family to run everything in the mob land, and she has identified her grandson as being the person who is the least moral, the most out of control — and she’s probably right. She thinks those are the qualities needed to do that particular kind of business, and what she’s worried about with Conrad is that, you know, he’s made his money. He’s sort of retiring. He’s got his dogs, and he’s fishing, and you know, as far as she’s concerned, he’s lost the plot, you know? She’s a city girl. She doesn’t want to be doyenne of the country society. She likes the streets. She likes to get down and dirty. That’s what she wants.