“I so want to be a mad driver in a Fast and Furious movie. My claim to fame is I always do my own driving. I was on Top Gear and I did [my lap] in a very good time,” Mirren said in an older interview in 2016. She did get her wish, after what she described as “begging” on her knees with leading man / producer Vin Diesel and Universal Pictures bosses, but she was yet to fully live the dream – fast and furiously.
She did that for Fast 9. As fans must already know from the trailer and the assorted footage released in recent weeks, F9 will see Magdalene Shaw aka “Queenie” return and, in the process, manage to evade cops in a purple Noble M600 she drifts gloriously on the London streets. According to the actress, that was her at the wheel – presumably, not for the drifting part, but she did drive the car. She calls her time at the wheel of the Noble a match made in heaven.
The Noble M600 is a rare British supercar first introduced in 2010 and hand built by Leicestershgire-based manufacturer Noble Automotive. A single V8-powered supercar of the kind retails for £200,000 ($282,000), so you’ll excuse producers if they didn’t let Mirren drift it.
Not that she wouldn’t have handled it. According to Diesel, “She can work that wheel. The boys have nothing on her.” He appears in the latest video along with Queenie and in the aforementioned cop chasing and evading scene. They also share an adorable moment and a peck on the cheek at the end of the featurette.
