Helen Mirren has joined forces with an Italian comic for a hilarious sketch to encourage locals to get the Covid vaccine.
The Oscar winner, 75, appeared in the fun clip with comedian Checco Zalone, who falls madly in love with her upon learning she’s had the jab and launches into a passionate tune in her honour.
It comes as Italy finally reached its target of administering 500,000 vaccines per day after a slow start to its distribution of jabs, with at least 14 million people receiving their first injection so far.
Get jabbed! Helen Mirren has joined forces with an Italian comic for a hilarious sketch to encourage locals to get the Covid vaccine
In the sketch, titled La Vacinda, Zalone, whose real name is Luca Pasquale Medici, playing a flustered Spaniard stopping at a house in Puglia, where Helen currently owns a farmhouse, to ask her for directions.
The actress, who is tending to a tree, offers some advice on where to go, but Zalone is clearly distracted by her exposed shoulder.
Asking why she has her right shoulder open, Helen noted she’d received her Covid vaccination, leading Zalone to launch into a romantic Latin love song for her.
The video then showed the pair enjoying a romantic walk in the vineyards and enjoying tea at her farmhouse.
Funny: The Oscar winner appeared in the fun clip with comedian Checco Zalone, who falls madly in love with her upon learning she’s had the jab
The chorus is a reference to Helen’s jabbed status, saying: ‘I love to dance with you, O’Vacinada, face to face with this immunised old girl.
He later sings: ‘I don’t care if your ankles are a bit swollen… Your movements are so suave and sensual it seems your femur is original.’
Zalone posted the clip on his Facebook page, writing: ‘Herd immunity has not arrived yet but at least there is the vaccine.’
For many years Helen has had a holiday home in Tiggiano in Puglia with her husband Taylor Hackford, and has previously threw her support behind a campaign to halt a deadly bacteria that has affected thousands of olive trees in the area.
Which way do I go? The clip shows Zalone, whose real name is Luca Pasquale Medici, stopping at a house in Puglia, where Helen currently owns a farmhouse, to ask her for directions
She told Italy’s news agence Ansa in 2017: ‘We need to help the Salento to save its ancient olive trees.
‘They are plants which have an extraordinary value for agriculture and for the landscape. Some of them are more than 2,000 years old, and now they are dying.
‘It is incredible that these olive trees could have been seen by Virgil and the Emperor Augustus, as history recounts.’
Earlier this week Italy finally hit its target of administering 500,000 COVID-19 vaccinations in a single day, according to Health Minister Roberto Speranza.
Romantic: The actress, who is tending to a tree, offers some advice on where to go, but Zalone is clearly distracted by her exposed shoulder
The perfect woman: Asking why she has her right shoulder open, Helen noted she’d received her Covid vaccination, leading Zalone to launch into a romantic song for her
Officials had originally hoped to pass it mid-month but had to push this back mainly because of supply delays and persisting doubts over shots produced by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
‘Vaccines are the real way out of these very difficult months,’ Speranza wrote on Twitter.
The Italian government said that as of early Friday, some 19.4 million vaccinations had been carried out, with 5.8 million people having received their full vaccine cycle – just under 10% of the total population.
The figures are in line with the European Union average.
Sweet: Zalone posted the clip on his Facebook page, writing: ‘Herd immunity has not arrived yet but at least there is the vaccine’