Helen Mirren’s connection with Lecce has become one of the more unlikely threads running through the club’s life in Serie A: an Oscar-winning actor from London, summer resident of Salento, drawn not by football’s grandest stages but by the yellow-red smoke and relentless singing at the Via del Mare.
During an appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show on 16 September, Mirren brought that affection to an American television audience. Fallon had been discussing surveys on the world’s most foul-mouthed supporters, naming New York Giants fans among the leading candidates, when Mirren interrupted to defend the standards of her own side, Lecce. Wearing green, she jokingly aimed colourful abuse at the host and made clear where her football loyalties now lie.
The idea did not originate with Mirren herself. She said the programme’s writers were already aware of her attachment to the Salento club when they invited her on. “Word had evidently reached New York,” she said, adding that she regretted not taking her yellow-and-red shirt to the United States, as she might otherwise have worn it on air.
A Salento home and a Sunday ritual
Mirren and her husband, the director Taylor Hackford, have spent much of the warmer part of the year near Tiggiano for almost two decades. Their relationship with the area began in the early 2000s, when they were considering a home in Umbria or Tuscany. Bruno Robeo, Hackford’s production designer, invited them to Tricase during a film festival, and the visit changed their plans.
It was September, with calm weather, a view of the full moon over the sea and a feeling that the couple had found somewhere different from the Italy they first imagined. Mirren had initially favoured a house facing the water, while Hackford preferred the restoration of an old masseria. The decision turned when she saw a local woman cycling through Tiggiano during a coffee stop. The ease of that everyday scene persuaded her. She agreed to the farmhouse, imagining herself cycling out to buy groceries.
After seven years of work, the property was completed in 2011. The couple generally spend around three months there each year: short stays in spring and autumn, a longer July break and, at times, a visit over Christmas. With help from local farmers, their routine has become markedly rural. Mirren has spoken of squeezing pomegranates by hand in the morning, gathering olives from the garden and using oil produced at home for their salads.
The area is also central to her environmental work. Mirren has supported efforts to confront Xylella, the bacterium that has caused severe damage to olive groves across Salento. Together with friends, she helped establish Save The Olives, a non-profit volunteer organisation supporting research, and she has used international media appearances to raise awareness of its work.
Her route to Lecce followed the same local logic. First came the city, the principal urban centre near her home; then came the football club. An acquaintance invited her to a match at the Via del Mare, where the stands made the lasting impression. Mirren recalled the flares and the songs that continued throughout the match, describing the experience as extraordinary. She said the colours also appealed to her: yellow recalling the sun, red the soil and fields she has grown to cherish.
Lecce president Saverio Sticchi Damiani met her on that visit and presented her with a personalised shirt. They had previously been introduced at the home of Pietro Luigi Nuccio, a lawyer from Tricase who has become an important point of reference for Mirren during her Italian stays. A dinner on a terrace helped establish the relationship, while the actor’s determination to attend matches in Lecce steadily grew.
At 81, Mirren remains energetic in the Salento routine she has built with Hackford. She still dives from the rocks into the sea, while her husband has made a habit of midnight swims, including on New Year’s Eve. Those close to her say she has also expressed a wish to watch Lecce from close to the Via del Mare’s Curva Nord, alongside the ultras. That possibility has been discouraged on public-order grounds.
Mirren’s answer, in keeping with the joke that began on American television, is that she is not the Queen of England. Yet for Lecce, whose seasons are often shaped by the hard work of staying in Serie A, her presence is a reminder of football’s more curious reach: a club rooted in a southern city, carrying its colours well beyond the Sunday afternoon crowd.
