Footage circulated online by an account called Anti-Fascist Action UK shows actress Helen Mirren smiling at a passerby who approached her on the streets of London, a smile that quickly faded.
The man, who turned out to be a pro-Palestinian activist, launched a verbal attack on her over her sympathetic stance toward Israel. He called her a “Zionist bitch,” and directed similar abuse at her husband, director Taylor Hackford.

At that point, Hackford intervened, asked the man to move away and repeatedly demanded that he leave.

Mirren’s connection to Israel is not new. She volunteered at Kibbutz HaOn, on the southeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, shortly after the Six-Day War, and has since often expressed her love for the country, while publicly opposing cultural boycotts against it.