Dame Helen Mirren has finally confirmed it: tomatoes are biconic.
On Monday (11 August), the Oscar-winning icon appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon alongside Pierce Brosnan to promote their highly-anticipated Netflix adaptation of The Thursday Murder Club.
Naturally, talk of pensioners solving a property developer’s murder gave way to gardening, and before long Mirren was explaining the finer points of tomato cultivation.
“You know the little flower? Well, a good way to get a tomato out of a flower is you have to tremble the flower like this,” said the voice actress behind Dean Hardscrabble in Monsters University (2013), before wiggling her bent finger. “Did you know that?”
After Fallon and the audience burst into laughter, Mirren clarified that she doesn’t do “that to all my tomatoes!” — before casually dropping the line: “A tomato is a bisexual thing, you see.”
The remark drew more uproarious laughter. “I looked it up very recently because I had a problem with my tomatoes,” she explained. “It’s bisexual, so you have to go around to each tomato, each flower, and go like this” — once again, making the bent-finger motion.
So… yeah. Watch the interview here or below.
The Thursday Murder Club will be released in select cinemas on 22 August, before streaming globally on Netflix on 28 August.
Mirren plays Elizabeth Best, a former spy, alongside Brosnan’s Ron Ritchie, a retired union leader. They’re joined by Ben Kingsley as psychiatrist-turned-pensioner Ibrahim Arif, and Celia Imrie as retired nurse Joyce Meadowcroft.
The ensemble cast also includes David Tennant as Ian Ventham, Jonathan Pryce as Stephen Best, Naomi Ackie as PC Donna De Freitas, Daniel Mays as DCI Chris Hudson, Henry Lloyd-Hughes as Bogdan, Richard E. Grant as Bobby Tanner, Tom Ellis as Jason Ritchie, Geoff Bell as Tony Curran, Paul Freeman as John Grey, Sarah Niles as Patrice De Freitas and Ingrid Oliver as Joanna Meadcroft.
The official synopsis reads: “Based on Richard Osman’s international bestselling novel of the same name, The Thursday Murder Club follows four irrepressible retirees – Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim and Joyce – who spend their time solving cold case murders for fun.
“When an unexplained death occurs on their own doorstep, their casual sleuthing takes a thrilling turn as they find themselves with a real whodunit on their hands. Directed by Chris Columbus, the film is the latest to be produced through the Netflix and Amblin Entertainment partnership.”
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