Top 100 Mirren's Quotes
#1. It's OK to sit in the Golden Globe room and look around and think, 'Oh, Helen Mirren's a loser tonight, so is Nicole Kidman. Meryl Streep lost tonight. Jessica Lange didn't win.' If you're gonna be in the company of losers, that's the company to be in.
Sarah Paulson
#2. I'll talk to her." Mirren's deep, rumbling voice sliced through the room like a cutter ship, leaving silence in its wake. "The rest of you, get the hell out.
Susannah Sandlin
#3. As an actor, those are the roles that you long for. You always want something that's going to kick your last role out of the water and put you off on a new path.
Helen Mirren
#4. Girls go out together to see a chick flick or something. I loathe, I hate, chick flicks.
Helen Mirren
#5. American actors who voice animated movies are so brilliant at it, because by the nature of American speak, it's full of energy and full of commitment. And as a British actor, we have to kind of learn that.
Helen Mirren
#6. I had my appendix removed in my 20s. I was in the middle of a play with Helen Mirren at the Royal Court Theatre, a fabulous career break. Then two weeks in I began suffering the most horrendous pain and had to pull out. Sadly, by the time I'd recovered, the show's run had ended.
Cherie Lunghi
#7. I always love working with young actors, because there's always something to learn. It's always exciting to see the next generation and how they approach things and what's great about them and what's not so great about them.
Helen Mirren
#8. There's a scary moment when you realise you're no longer the youngest person in the room. Especially if you've been a successful young person. That's followed, of course, by the realisation that you're actually the oldest person in the room.
Helen Mirren
#9. Women are always self-effacing and self-denying. There's a term that enrages me, and I always used to swear that I'd never play characters described that way. The term is "long-suffering."
Helen Mirren
#10. I don't think it's good to try and change anyone. The trick and the mystery - of relationships and life in general - is to learn to live with the bits you don't like.
Helen Mirren
#11. The role of women has always been undervalued in the spy world, always undermined in terms of recognition. Unfairly so. It's a world that needs women.
Helen Mirren
#12. I think it's always hard for people to get their head around the fact that populist, commercial films can also actually be great works of art.
Helen Mirren
#13. My parents believed in education and economic security, and I thank them for it. Because I think that's part of what's made my life stable. It was instilled in me. You have to be able to pay your bills. You do not get into debt. And I never have been.
Helen Mirren
#14. Painters hate having to explain what their work is about. They always say, 'It's whatever you want it to be' - because I think that's their intention, to connect with each person's subconscious, and not to try and dictate.
Helen Mirren
#15. Gardening is learning, learning, learning. That's the fun of them. You're always learning.
Helen Mirren
#16. I'm not a republican any more. Not so voraciously anyway - I'm not in favour of the concept of monarchy, but I do see the good in it if there's a good person in the role.
Helen Mirren
#17. Two phrases I hate in reference to female characters are 'strong' and 'feisty.' They really annoy me. It's the most condescending thing. You say that about a three-year-old. It infantilises women.
Helen Mirren
#18. The timing of comedy is so difficult. You've got to leave room for a laugh, you don't want to kill the laugh, but on film, you can't just suddenly stop for a laugh and then carry on. So, I think it's a real art form, comedy on film.
Helen Mirren
#19. My dad's Russian. My mother's English. I would say my bottom half is Russian.
Helen Mirren
#20. I still have a Gypsy sense of adventure. I don't think I have slept in the same bed for more than three or four months my whole life. I am always planting vegetables that I never get to eat and flowers that I never see flower. I have always moved around the world.
Helen Mirren
#21. I don't mind being sexy, but on my terms. To this day, I love sexuality. I love the art of sexuality. I love Lady Gaga and the performance of sexuality. The mysterious, the artistic and the slightly perverse. I'm interested in all that.
Helen Mirren
#22. I'm a would-be rebel. The good girl who'd like to be a bad one.
Helen Mirren
#23. They're called 'action scenes' because they do the acting for you. You don't have to act in action scenes. The action does it all for you. It's great.
Helen Mirren
#24. I learned quite early on in life that we are all two people. And one of those people none of us will ever know.
Helen Mirren
#25. She glanced again toward Vincent. "And who is he again?"
Vincent grinned. "I'm Vincent Blackman of the SpiderSly Company. Mirren and I are going to sleep together; we just have to get through this bullshit of her father's first.
Erin Kellison
#26. My grandfather had come over as a member of the czarist army, to make an arms deal with the British government. Being a blinkered military man, he was unaware that the Russian Revolution was about to take place.
Helen Mirren
#27. People with Parkinson's are not some weird people on the edge of human experience.
Helen Mirren
#28. I have done film, television and theatre - all at a pretty substantial level - I don't think it's possible for American actors to do that.
Helen Mirren
#29. The hardest period in life is one's twenties. It's a shame because you're your most gorgeous, and you're physically in peak condition. But it's actually when you're most insecure and full of self-doubt. When you don't know what's going to happen, it's frightening.
Helen Mirren
#30. Patience can be a good thing - but not necessarily. Sometimes it's not so bad to be impatient. I'm a little bit too polite.
Helen Mirren
#31. Ill-informed intuition is fantastic - it's what great art is. So really old painters or writers or actors are brilliant, because they've finally reached the point when they can let go of al technique.
Helen Mirren
#32. There's a heartbeat in any country that carries on regardless - at least in Europe. That's what worries me about America, because I'm not sure what that heartbeat is - unless it's the heartbeat of someone who's just arrived, who just ran over the border two weeks ago.
Helen Mirren
#33. There's no good way to waste your time. Wasting time is just wasting time.
Helen Mirren
#34. The most important thing is to bring people with Parkinson's into our world and for the public to have a real understanding of it, as they're beginning to have with autism.
Helen Mirren
#35. I think we have reached a level in society - with Helen Mirren playing The Queen - when we're not surprised any more. We don't mention names. Yes, it's obvious by inference. But we don't mention names and the film is not up to point fingers at Royalty.
David Suchet
#37. The important thing is to bring people with Parkinson's into our world and for the public to have a real understanding of it, as they've beginning to have with autism.
Helen Mirren
#38. Parkinson's is a slow but inevitable process. It's hard living with it on a daily basis. The difficulty facing people with it is that they never quite know 'Can I or can't I do this today?'
Helen Mirren
#39. There isn't a King Lear for women, or a Henry V, or a Richard III. You reach a level where you can handle that stuff technically and mentally, and it's not there.
Helen Mirren
#40. Now the whole fucking world is different."
"It's about to get worse," Steve said.
"Then I'll call for food," Vincent said. "Mirren, this might be our last meal. Any preferences?
Erin Kellison
#41. What's great in the modern world is that it's becoming easier and easier for people to create without having access to large sums of money. They need access to certain technologies, but the cost is far less than it used to be.
Helen Mirren
#42. I do think it's well over-time to have a female Doctor Who. I think a gay, black female Doctor Who would be the best of all.
Helen Mirren
#43. Love is a command to rise to one's highest potential ... the best and noblest vision of ourselves. Love is a reward. The greatest we can earn. Granted to us for the moral qualities we have achieved in our lives.
Helen Mirren
#44. I always feel when you work with an artist and whenever I work with a really good photographer, I try to give him or her their own artistic freedom because that's the way you get the best work or at least the most interesting work.
Helen Mirren
#45. It's outrageous. It's ridiculous. And 'twas ever thus. We all watched James Bond as he got more and more geriatric, and his girlfriends got younger and younger. It's so annoying.
Helen Mirren
#46. When I'm choosing projects to be a part of it's always a combination of so many different things. The primary thing is the director. But a very important element is, is it different enough from anything else I've ever done, or what I've last done.
Helen Mirren
#47. I can't say 'no' to an interesting role. I always tell my husband, 'That's it, I quit, I've done all I wanted,' and he's just like, 'Yeah, yeah. Sure.'
Helen Mirren
#48. When you're 16, you think 28 is so old! And then you get to 28 and it's fabulous. You think, then, what about 42? Ugh! And then 42 is great. As you reach each age, you gain the understanding you need to deal with it and enjoy it.
Helen Mirren
#49. There's nothing sexy about doing a nude scene. It's rather uncomfortable. I like dressing up rather than dressing down.
Helen Mirren
#50. Sometimes nudity is sexy. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes being clothed is more sexy than being nude.
Helen Mirren
#51. I believe in meditation - it's a good tool to centre yourself, but unfortunately, I'm too lazy to do it. It's very hard work, and I prefer to watch 'Nothing To Declare' on TV!
Helen Mirren
#52. When you do a voice in an animated film, you don't see the finished product at all. You're not animating. You're not doing the voice on the finished product. You're doing the voice long before.
Helen Mirren
#53. I'm a naturist at heart. I love being on beaches where everyone is naked. Ugly young people, beautiful old people, whatever. It's so unsexual and so liberating ...
Helen Mirren
#54. I do sometimes worry about getting older and the fact that I am not going to be a model for ever ... But the fact that Helen Mirren can look so good in swimwear is an amazing boost for all women. When I think about [women like her] I instantly stop worrying.
Kelly Brook
#55. It has nothing to do with clothing or makeup. Just put your shoulders back and chin up, and face the world with pride.
Helen Mirren
#56. Once a film gets into production, the actors sometimes begin to have more input than a writer does.
Helen Mirren
#57. I am so happy that I didn't have children. Well, you know, because I've had freedom. And I've so loved my freedom.
Helen Mirren
#58. Actors are rogues and vagabonds. Or they ought to be.
Helen Mirren
#59. Mirren pulled the knife blade across the vampire's throat before he could answer. Two more strokes and it was done. Sometimes, one didn't need a sword to take a head. Rage and a good, sharp knife worked just fine.
Susannah Sandlin
#60. I am British. I love Britain for all its faults and all its virtues. My husband is American and I am largely based in Los Angeles, but whenever someone asks me where home is, I automatically say 'London.'
Helen Mirren
#61. In Shakespeare's day it was women who were being burned at the stake as witches ... not men. The men were thought of as alchemists. But women doing the same thing would be a witch and would be burned.
Helen Mirren
#62. I don't know who I am. But I do know who I'm not. I have occasionally tried playing people I'm definitely not, and that wasn't a very pleasant experience.
Helen Mirren
#63. When you're young, you wonder what all these old people are droning on about, trying to impart their wisdom. It's not relevant to you because being young is such a specific thing. Thank God for that. Thank God for the young people who go out and demonstrate against rampant capitalism or whatever.
Helen Mirren
#64. When you're young and beautiful, you're paranoid and miserable.
Helen Mirren
#65. It's very easy to just shout: 'Off with their heads!' Maybe in doing that you might lose something very valuable. I would like to see the monarchy continue, but in a more democratic fashion.
Helen Mirren
#66. The whole 'R' rating depends on a strange sort of fantasy land where all adults are responsible people, and children only ever go to the cinema with their parents.
Helen Mirren
#67. I think of myself as being a bit of a wimp deep down - a bourgeois wimp - and I'm fighting that. I think all Brits are, maybe.
Helen Mirren
#68. I prefer the finesse of French humour. English humour is more scathing, more cruel, as illustrated by Monty Python and Little Britain.
Helen Mirren
#69. Humor in a relationship is so important. Many women will say that. Some say, 'If they can make you laugh, it's the sexiest thing on earth.'
Helen Mirren
#70. The French always seemed to be so chic. The food was better, the clothes were better, the makeup was better, the hair was better. Everything was better in France.
Helen Mirren
#71. I remember thinking, when I was in my early 30s, that this is the best age to be, and I still believe your 30s are a wonderful time.
Helen Mirren
#72. Directors always used to be like the police to me - the enemy, the people to tell me what to do when I didn't want to do it. But I've lived with one for a while now and I guess I can put myself more in their position. You shouldn't be too sympathetic to them.
Helen Mirren
#73. When I was making films [early in my career] there were very, very few female directors, and there were certainly no women on set, which made taking one's clothes off all the more difficult
Helen Mirren
#74. I believe that if you want to go make your mark on the world you've got to go out and do it. Don't be shy, be adventurous.
Helen Mirren
#75. I have no maternal instinct whatsoever. Motherhood holds no interest for me.
Helen Mirren
#76. Where you grew up becomes a big part of who you are for the rest of your life. You can't run away from that. Well, sometimes the running away from it is what makes you who you are.
Helen Mirren
#77. Where does this guy's ambition go? That's very peculiar. I think he's a very disturbing person, I think he's a very disturbing politician. Personally, I feel his interest is a self-interest
Helen Mirren
#78. You write your life story by the choices you make. You never know if they have been a mistake. Those moments of decision are so difficult.
Helen Mirren
#79. Icy and earthy, Helen Mirren is a rare, regal presence in a movie age that values the plebeian over the patrician and mass over class. Lauded with an Oscar and an Emmy for playing both Queen Elizabeths, Mirren has matched her cool aristocracy with a boldness of performance and display.
Richard Corliss
#80. You know, he [Alan Rickman] played these very reserved, sometimes-cold, sometimes-threatening characters on the screen, but the reality of the man was incredible warmth and humor and generosity and wicked fun.
Helen Mirren
#81. I think a lot of my work has been a weird attempt to liberate myself, but it's not altogether successful.
Helen Mirren
#82. As you get older naked stuff [on film] gets easier. It's more to do with the role than what men in the audience think. There's a liberation about it.
Helen Mirren
#83. I've always been battling against my sense of dignity and refinement. I was embarrassed by any bodily functions when I was younger. I could never even blow my nose.
Helen Mirren
#84. It's a mystery, that thing about chemistry, because often people who hate each other in real life and hate each other on the set have great chemistry on the screen. And people who love each other in real life and love each other on the set have absolutely no chemistry whatsoever.
Helen Mirren
#85. All you have to do is to look like crap on film and everyone thinks you're a brilliant actress. Actually, all you've done is look like crap.
Helen Mirren
#86. I knew I wanted to engage in the world of the imagination, but it was not economically feasible for me to study acting, so I went to a teachers' training college.
Helen Mirren
#87. Any role that's proactive is a great role, and action roles are by their very nature proactive. You get to do stuff. I hate sitting in a corner - I'd much prefer an action role in a popcorn movie rather than pining in a corner not doing anything.
Helen Mirren
#88. You know, some actors, all of their potential is in their youth, and when that passes, their qualities of as an actor pass. But he - Alan [Rickman] was the opposite, and their are other actors who are like that, who, really, their potential is in maturity
Helen Mirren
#89. Hollywood is a very small world; the people who matter matter, and the people who don't matter are just like nothing.
Helen Mirren
#90. Writers can get very angry when an actor says, "I don't know, I don't feel very comfortable with this line." Sometimes though, you're working with a writer for whom that is simply not apt - like Harold Pinter.
Helen Mirren
#91. I certainly think that he [Alan Rickman] was a kind of actor who needed to grow into his maturity to realize the potential, the huge potential that he had.
Helen Mirren
#92. I have to say, without sounding like a total tosser, that everything I've learned in life, and that has taken me out of my natural interior life, has been with men. They exposed me to things that I wasn't aware of. I learned from all the guys.
Helen Mirren
#93. The best actors are children and dogs because they're not acting at all." - Helen Mirren
Judith Weston
#94. The trick in life is learning how to deal with it.
Helen Mirren
#95. I hate people eating on film. I hate it even worse on the radio, when people eat on the radio. I just can't stand it.
Helen Mirren
#96. Working away from my husband for long periods is good and bad. It stops us taking each other for granted and gives us space, but I miss him terribly.
Helen Mirren
#97. I couldn't handle the rules the Queen has to live by at all, and very few of us could. It's a golden cage, really. You're never alone in that role - you are always surrounded by security.
Helen Mirren
#98. Love thy neighbor is difficult. That's why everybody - wars, you know. It's the hardest. And it's the most important. And respect thy neighbor. Love and respect. It means respect, really. Respect thy neighbor. Respect the other, the different.
Helen Mirren
#99. Acting is acting, but acting is different in almost always every project, and very, very different in this context.
Helen Mirren
#100. I have never in my life found myself in a situation where I've stopped work and said, 'Thank God it's Friday.' But weekends are special even if your schedule is all over the place. Something tells you the weekend has arrived and you can indulge yourself a bit.
Helen Mirren
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