`Calendar' girl talks about being nude, almost 60.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Byline: Connie Ogle

Comedy is not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Helen Mirren.

You might recall the tough, capable Jane Tennison of TV's ``Prime Suspect.'' Or tough, capable Jane Wilson, the housekeeper with a key secret in ``Gosford Park,'' a role that won Mirren an Oscar nomination. But it was the laughs that drew her to her latest role, that of the irrepressible Chris, who perhaps loves newfound fame a bit too much, in ``Calendar Girls.''

``At first I assumed they wanted me to play the other role,'' says Mirren, referring to the part of the more sober Annie, which went to Julie Walters. ``Chris is so different from so many of the other characters I've played. In another life she would have been Catherine Zeta-Jones. She wants to be a star. And she's just a housewife in the Dales, but that doesn't stop her. ''

As for the comedy? ``The real wit and humor of the script that we eventually filmed was just so charming and lovely. I just loved it. I felt very liberated. I just sort of let it all hang out.''

Letting it all hang out is, of course, the whole point of ``Calendar Girls,'' which is about a group of women who posed nude for a charity calendar. Mirren, Walters and the other actresses met their real-life counterparts briefly before filming began, an encounter that proved to be invaluable, Mirren says.

``They were effervescent and loud and raunchy, and it ...