Helen Mirren's CGI 'Challenge'

Helen Mirren has admitted that she found the CGI aspect of her new movie The Tempest a 'challenge'.

The actress returned to the big screen last week in Julie Taymor's adaptation of the Shakespeare play, in which Mirren plays the central role of Prospera.

And while the actress shares many scenes with Brit star Ben Whishaw she found it difficult when he was not there in person.

Speaking to the Press Association the actress said: "It was a bit of a challenge, he was a tennis ball on a stick for a lot of the time.

"But you know that's the way digital effects work and our job as actors is to live in the world of the imagination, so that's what we do for a living.

"So it wasn't so difficult."

And CGI was not the only problem facing the Oscar winner: "Heavy costumes in Hawaii in the heat - there were those kind of challenges, and also demanding language, it's really action of the brain and of the tongue than of the body."

The Tempest is out now.