Helen Mirren to play eccentric heiress in Australian haunted house thriller Winchester

HELEN Mirren is coming to Australia to play an eccentric arms heiress in haunted house film Winchester.

Eccentric heiress ... Helen Mirren to play Winchester widow, Picture: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images

HELEN Mirren will travel to Victoria to film Winchester, a supernatural thriller to be directed by the Spierig brothers (Predestination).

The Oscar-winning English actor will play the role millionaire heiress Sarah Winchester, who believed the Californian mansion she designed and built to be haunted by the ghosts of people killed by Winchester rifles.

Production will begin in Melbourne, Docklands Studios early next year before moving to the real house in the Santa Clara Valley.

“There have been few haunted house stories that have captured our imaginations quite like the legend of the Winchester House,’’ said Queensland-based writer/directors Peter and Michael Spierig.

“Sarah Winchester was an eccentric pioneer, an inventor, a woman plagued by her family’s legacy, we couldn’t be more thrilled to have Helen Mirren bring this fascinating character to life.”

Mirren was most recently seen as an English army colonel in Eye In the Sky, a nailbiting thriller, set in Kenya, which examines the ethical and political implications of modern warfare.

She also has a role in the latest Fast and Furious movie, Fast 8.