Helen Mirren has said that playing crime writer Patricia Highsmith in the upcoming thriller "A Talent for Murder" was one of the toughest real-life roles of her career, owing to how starkly different she found the author's personality from her own. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter at TIFF, the Oscar-winning actress said Highsmith ranked alongside Queen Elizabeth II and Golda Meir as the most demanding figures she has portrayed, describing the "Talented Mr Ripley" author as "very abrasive" and "very reclusive" in her later years.

Mirren has built an extensive résumé of real-life portrayals, including the Queen in "The Queen", Golda Meir in "Golda", Cleopatra, Catherine the Great and Alfred Hitchcock's wife Alma Reville, and has previously said that playing real people carries greater responsibility than fictional roles, even if the creative process is fundamentally similar. Directed by Anton Corbijn and adapted by Joanna Murray-Smith from her play "Switzerland", "A Talent for Murder" follows a young man, played by Alden Ehrenreich, sent by Highsmith's publisher to persuade her to write another Ripley novel; the film also stars Olivia Cooke and Juliet Stevenson and is due for release on 23 October.