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Don’t Count Helen Mirren Out of Kendrick Lamar’s New Video

It was always coming to this, right? After dropping a therapy session of an album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, earlier this year, Kendrick Lamar finally made a therapy-session music video. And if we can count on K.Dot to do one thing, it’s commit, so he cast Dame Helen Mirren as his therapist. What’s the hourly rate for an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony winner? Following in the footsteps of TV therapists like Dr. Jennifer Melfi, Mirren challenges her client on stealing a woman’s parking spot and pushes him to open up about feeling “fallen.” Then, we watch her react to Lamar rapping “Count Me Out” — which must be a first for her in a session.

Tapping in Mirren is just the latest step in Lamar’s film-bro era. He’s currently been campaigning for an Oscar nod for his “short film” music video “We Cry Together,” starring himself and Taylour Paige. (And he’s not the only musician gunning for gold, either.) Like “We Cry Together,” Lamar also co-directed “Count Me Out” with his pgLang collaborator Dave Free — meaning he directed the Helen Mirren. Really, though, hope she charged a good rate for it.

Don’t Count Helen Mirren Out of Kendrick Lamar’s New Video