Helen Mirren: "I've Never Worried About Getting Older"

I LOVE Helen Mirren. She's bawdy, she's smart, she's....she's a broad. And a hot one! I'm enchanted by Helen Mirren. She's what I wish Susan "So Serious" Sarandon were more like.


White-haired Helen Mirren shows she’s still stunning at 62 - and insists: “I’ve never worried about getting older.”

Mirren insists she felt she was “never beautiful” and saw herself only as “an incredibly serious Shakespearean actress”.

And she also insists she has always tried to avoid the title that forever gets attached to her - that of a movie ’sex Queen’.

“I’m still trying to wriggle out from under that label,” she said.

She also insisted that being a young sex symbol gives women a power they find too hard to handle - and as she got older it came as “an incredible relief”. She explained: “Sexuality for girls is so complex and tricky.

“I was never beautiful, but as a young woman, beautiful or not is sort of irrelevant.

“Being a sexual object is mortifying and irritating, yet it’s giving you power-an awful power that you’ve done nothing to deserve, a powerless power.

“I think some young women fall in love with that power, and it’s really objectifying. And when it starts falling away, it’s an incredible relief.”

She added: “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 and experience you need to deal with it and enjoy it.”

She admits though that not all actresses get to carry on working once they have passed those so-called prime years as a sex symbol.

“I’ve never been worried about getting older, but I do recognize that I’ve been incredibly lucky,” she said. “I’ve been able to keep working and working, how cool is that?

“I’m still here, and I’m surging ahead at the moment. But that happened because I’ve always thought of myself as constantly learning.”

Mirren admitted that as an actress she has to make an effort over her appearance.

“You’ve got to stand there and have the makeup put on you,” she said. “You’ve got to try and look good. It’s your job.”

But she also believes the pressure for her is not as intense as for other celebrities who she believes are far more famous.

“I wouldn’t say I’m terrifically famous, quite honestly,” she said. “I’m not like Tom Cruise.

“What I have is very benign, very sweet. Often it goes straight over my head.”

She added: “There are only two really tough times to be recognized: One is when you’re waiting for your luggage in the airport, and the other is when you are standing in line for the ladies’.

“Then you’re a captive and you either give up your place in line or you pretend that you don’t want your luggage after all.

“And then the embarrassment of my scruffy luggage when it does come out.’”