Helen Mirren has said that she “begged” Vin Diesel to give her a role in the Fast & Furious franchise.

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The actor made her debut in 2017’s The Fate Of The Furious as Queenie, the mother of Deckard (Jason Statham), Owen (Luke Evans), and Hattie Shaw (Vanessa Kirby), and went on to star in 2019’s spin-off Hobbs And Shaw as well as Fast & Furious 9.

Speaking in a new interview, Mirren, a self-confessed car lover, said pleaded with Diesel – who plays Dominic Toretto in the blockbuster franchise – to help her get the part.

“I didn’t ask, I begged!” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “I think I was at some function, and he was there, and I got introduced to him. And I was shameless: ‘Oh God, I’d just love to be in one of your movies! Please let me be in it.’

“And then Vin, with that beautiful, deep voice of his, said: ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ And he did it for me. He found this great little role for me, which was perfect. I’d just never done anything like that before – one of those big, big movies. And, in my vanity, I just loved driving and really wanted to do my own driving in a fast car.”

It’s not the first time Mirren has gushed over Diesel’s “beautiful voice”. Last year, she told Entertainment Weekly: “You’re in very safe and loving hands when you’re in a Fast And Furious. It was just great to be in a very small space with Vin Diesel for quite a long time. I just loved every minute.

“It was great, hearing that beautiful, soft brown velvet voice really, really close, because we were squished together. Oh, I just so love his voice. He’s got the best voice ever.”

On her relationship with Diesel, Mirren added: “That’s completely natural chemistry. It was there right from the very beginning of my first meeting with Vin.

“And I just adored him immediately, and he’s always been so kind and lovely to me. So it was there right from the beginning, and it is very weird. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever on any level, but that’s the weird thing about chemistry, isn’t it? There’s never an explanation for it. It’s just one of those things that happens.”

Meanwhile, Mirren is set to play a villain in the upcoming Shazam! sequel.

Shazam! Fury Of The Gods will see the actor take on the role of Hespera, a daughter of Atlas, in the upcoming DC sequel.