Stars turn out for London premiere of State of Play

Helen Mirren and Russell Crowe turned out together in Leicester Square on Tuesday night for the London premiere of the thriller State of Play in which Crowe plays a rumpled American newspaper journalist and Mirren is his ruthless editor.

Despite a bevy of starlets and minor celebrities dressed in skimpy summer dresses, 63-year-old Mirren stole the red carpet show in a Donna Karan white shift dress teamed with Jimmy Choo shoes. Crowe, newly slimmed down for his role as Robin Hood in a new Ridley Scott film that's just started shooting, chose a shiny grey suit and aviator glasses.

The film is based on Paul Abbott's acclaimed BBC mini-series of the same name, broadcast in 2003. The plot is the same - about a journalist and a politician and a big can of worms - but the action has been moved to Washington DC.

The big-screen version is directed by Kevin MacDonald, who made his name with Touching the Void and The Last King Of Scotland. MacDonald said of Mirren's performance: "Helen's very sexy and authoritative and is brilliant when she's giving Russell a telling off in the film."

Crowe, who has a long and awkward relationship with the press, recently addressed the irony of his playing a journalist. In an interview with the Sunday Times, he spoke of his first meeting with MacDonald: "I said, if you expect me to play a journalist as a hero, you're talking to the wrong bloke. If you want me to play a journalist as a human being, full of faults, predilections and foibles and quirks, then, yes, I'll play that. Out of it may come the thing you are looking for, but there's no way I'm going for playing a journalist as a hero."

State of Play, which also stars Rachel McAdams, opens at cinemas on April 24. ·