Helen Mirren is 'very nervous' about filming 'Fast 8'

Even Dame Helen Mirren gets anxious about new gigs.

While preparing to shoot season 2 (or rather, season 51) of IFC’s Documentary Now! — the Academy Award-winner serves as the “host” of the doc-spoofing series — Tuesday afternoon in New York, Mirren spoke to EW about her upcoming appearance in Fast 8, the next installment in the Fast and Furious franchise, for which she begins filming this week in Atlanta.

“I’m very nervous,” she admits, “because when you’re going on to a set with people who have been doing this for [so long], basically, they all know each other, they’ve worked together, they know what they’re doing. I’ll be, you know, the newcomer, the newbie.”

“I’ve only got one day, and I’ll probably f— it up, oh God,” she adds, laughing. “I think they’ll be nice to me. I hope they’ll be nice to me.”

Then again, Mirren has wanted to make a pit stop in a Fast and Furious film for years. “My great ambition is to be in a Fast and Furious movie,” the actress told Yahoo Movies in March 2015. “I so want to be a mad driver in a Fast and Furious movie.”

But sadly for Mirren, Fast 8 won’t feature her behind the steering wheel. “I wanted to be driving, but unfortunately, I’m not,” she says, shrugging. “Maybe that will come in the future, in Fast and Furious 12.” She pauses. “I’m probably one of the few people on the set who know how to drive a gear shift car. I doubt the Rock knows,” she jokes. “But I do. I know how to double declutch.” Maybe Fast 8 writers should rethink sidelining Mirren…

Fast 8 speeds into theaters April 14, 2017.