(Cover) - EN Showbiz - Dame Helen Mirren confessed that she felt like a "dinosaur" while filming fight scenes in her newest film.

Helen portrays Rachel Singer, a retired secret agent, in political thriller The Debt. The film is centred around a 1966 mission involving Helen's character Rachel and a team of Israeli Mossad agents who track down a former Nazi in Berlin. The 66-year-old actress had to learn krav maga, a self-defence style fighting technique used by the Israeli Defensive Forces for this role. Helen confesses that she did not feel as vigorous as she did in her youth while filming violent scenes.

"You might call it the battle of the dinosaurs, but on set we nicknamed it the geriatric fight,'" Helen told British newspaper The Daily Mail. "There was me 66 years of age and the heavy I was playing opposite was not in the first flush of youth either."

Many of the fight scenes left Helen absolutely winded. It would take her a bit of time to get on her feet from the floor after the sequence was filmed.

"I hope the fight looks authentic and dramatic but the aftermath which obviously cinema-goers won't see was more sedate," Helen said. "It took quite a while for me to recover enough strength to get up from the floor when we had finished our grappling! I don't think I have the stamina for action sequences anymore." (C) Cover Media