Before Helen Mirren agreed to play elderly Jewish World War II refugee Maria Altmann in the new film Woman in Gold, the Academy Award-winning actress checked the last page of the screenplay to see if the character was there.

It's a trick Mirren learned early in her career. Altmann's character was at the end of the screenplay of the film about her life that opened in US theaters on Wednesday.

"All the good roles are on the last page and if they are not on the last page, they have to have a good exit. I've always done that," Mirren, 69, says in an interview.