Quotes About Helen Mirren

#1. 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

#2. The best actors are children and dogs because they're not acting at all." - Helen Mirren

Judith Weston

#3. 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

#4. Meeting Helen Mirren was a fabulous experience. I had played it out in my mind, how I should greet her when we would be introduced. But the way we met was funny because I just didn't recognise her!

Om Puri

#5. I like that Helen Mirren has been saying the next doctor should be a woman. I would like to go on record and say that the queen should be played by a man.

Steven Moffat

#6. I admire the work of brilliant actresses such as Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Helen Mirren, who have had such varied careers. They have never stopped working, and they are as great today as they ever were.

Cate Blanchett

#7. Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep can play with the boys but there just aren't that many tour-de-force roles out there for women,

Aaron Sorkin

#8. 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

#9. I got the O.B.E because I represent England outside of England more ... but thinking of me as an actor, I haven't done all the classical theatre, all the great roles. Think of Helen Mirren and me. Helen, who I adore, is a friend - should be Dame. I am the rebel, the revolutionary on the side.

Charlotte Rampling

#10. Helen Mirren is someone that I have really admired ever since I saw her in 'Excalibur.' That was the first thing I said to her. 'I loved you as Morgan Le Fay.'

Nicolas Cage

#11. I've been an admirer of Helen Mirren for a long time. As I get older, I find myself admiring older women who have poise and elegance.

Thomas Haden Church

#12. I am not interested in being a Barbie doll and turning myself into a sausage for the next 20 years. I want to follow actresses like Helen Mirren and Judi Dench who have lines on their faces and aren't afraid of playing their age.

Kim Cattrall

#13. 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

#14. I have this thing for British women. I love Judi Dench. I love Helen Mirren. I love these women, and I definitely do have big girl crushes on them.

Jennifer Nettles

#15. I'm always interested in something that Helen Mirren is doing. I thought her series Prime Suspect was unbelievable. I think she might be my favorite actress.

Julie Halston

#16. Helen Mirren is like the sexiest woman on the planet to me. She is. Just the way she goes about everything.

Barry Watson

#17. 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

#18. 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

#19. I have no maternal instinct whatsoever. Motherhood holds no interest for me.

Helen Mirren

#20. 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

#21. 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

#22. 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

#23. 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

#24. 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

#25. 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

#26. I prefer the finesse of French humour. English humour is more scathing, more cruel, as illustrated by Monty Python and Little Britain.

Helen Mirren

#27. 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

#28. 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

#29. 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

#30. When you're young and beautiful, you're paranoid and miserable.

Helen Mirren

#31. 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

#32. 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

#33. 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

#34. 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

#35. Actors are rogues and vagabonds. Or they ought to be.

Helen Mirren

#36. 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

#37. Once a film gets into production, the actors sometimes begin to have more input than a writer does.

Helen Mirren

#38. 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

#39. 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

#40. 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

#41. 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

#42. Acting is acting, but acting is different in almost always every project, and very, very different in this context.

Helen Mirren

#43. 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

#44. 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

#45. 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

#46. 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

#47. The trick in life is learning how to deal with it.

Helen Mirren

#48. 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

#49. 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

#50. 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

#51. 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

#52. 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

#53. 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

#54. 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

#55. 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

#56. 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

#57. 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

#58. 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

#59. I think a lot of my work has been a weird attempt to liberate myself, but it's not altogether successful.

Helen Mirren

#60. 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

#61. 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

#62. Hollywood is a very small world; the people who matter matter, and the people who don't matter are just like nothing.

Helen Mirren

#63. Girls go out together to see a chick flick or something. I loathe, I hate, chick flicks.

Helen Mirren

#64. 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

#65. 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

#66. 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

#67. I'm a would-be rebel. The good girl who'd like to be a bad one.

Helen Mirren

#68. 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

#69. 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

#70. You have to allow life to play itself out.

Helen Mirren

#71. My dad's Russian. My mother's English. I would say my bottom half is Russian.

Helen Mirren

#72. 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

#73. 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

#74. 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

#75. Right after winning the Oscar, when everyone was going home, they let these little gold Oscary shapes flutter down from the ceiling. Leonardo DiCaprio came over, bowed down, and kissed my hand. It was the most fabulous moment - such a lovely gesture. He didn't say anything.

Helen Mirren

#76. I love photography, and I love the art of photography.

Helen Mirren

#77. I'd like to see a much more open Monarchy, myself. I used to think they were completely useless and we should get rid of them. I don't necessarily feel that way anymore. I'm still ambivalent, I still loathe the British class system, and the Royal family are the apex of the British class system.

Helen Mirren

#78. Gardening is learning, learning, learning. That's the fun of them. You're always learning.

Helen Mirren

#79. I love men that love women. Morgan Freeman, who I worked with on 'RED,' was very flattering to me. But he is flattering to all women. He is a woman-charmer.

Helen Mirren

#80. The great marriages are partnerships. It can't be a great marriage without being a partnership.

Helen Mirren

#81. 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

#82. 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

#83. Flesh sells. People don't want to see pictures of churches. They want to see naked bodies.

Helen Mirren

#84. 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

#85. I'm not a communist, of course. But I do think that everything is down to economics. Capitalism doesn't change.

Helen Mirren

#86. I was part of the first generation of girls and women to be educated and go to grammar school even if we didn't have much money. Then that generation went, 'OK, great', and went into medicine or the police, and hit this wall of discrimination from older men who hadn't caught up.

Helen Mirren

#87. I used to look out the window of my bedroom as a kid, and there were these stars that, in my mind, made a big "A" in the sky. I thought my destiny was to go there.

Helen Mirren

#88. 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

#89. The poor Oscars - they always get slammed in the press.

Helen Mirren

#90. The whole thing of clothes is insane. You can spend a dollar on a jacket in a thrift store. And you can spend a thousand dollars on a jacket in a shop. And if you saw those two jackets walking down the street, you probably wouldn't know which was which.

Helen Mirren

#91. 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

#92. Words can be used for venal purposes. Words are incredible sources of propaganda and can cause terrible havoc.

Helen Mirren

#93. I'd describe myself as a Christian who doesn't believe in God.

Helen Mirren

#94. I've been working every year since I started acting, and I got many awards before I won the Oscar for 'The Queen.'

Helen Mirren

#95. 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

#96. 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

#97. It was never my intention to marry anybody. Economics are basically the only reason to get married, but I'm very glad I did it.

Helen Mirren

#98. 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

#99. I don't see that anybody needs to earn $12 million for three months' work, quite honestly.

Helen Mirren

#100. 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