Top 197 Quotes & Sayings by Helen Mirren
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British actress Helen Mirren.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
I'm terrified of learning lines, and I've always been terrified that I won't learn them.
I've always found as an actress that the best thing to do in film or TV or theater is just to lose yourself in it. Think of the story, the character, the worlds we're in, and forget everything else.
Sometimes nudity is sexy. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes being clothed is more sexy than being nude.
When you're 16, 30 seems ancient. When you're 30, 45 seems ancient. When you're 45, 60 seems ancient. When you're 60, nothing seems ancient.
I can't help being Christian because I was brought up in Britain, and the morality of Christianity is part of the fabric of this country.
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.
When women get great roles in life, they start to get great roles in films and TV. Look at Janet Reno, Madeleine Albright, and Mrs. Thatcher. Because those images are coming at us in life, they are reflected in acting.
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.
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.
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.
It's great to be queen!
Gardening is learning, learning, learning. That's the fun of them. You're always learning.
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.
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.
I am quite spiritual. I believed in the fairies when I was a child. I still do sort of believe in the fairies. And the leprechauns. But I don't believe in God.
I'm under the impression that this notion of decency is disappearing from our society where conflicts are made worse on cinema and on television, where people are nasty and cruel on the Internet and where, in general, everybody seems to be very angry.
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.
I've been working every year since I started acting, and I got many awards before I won the Oscar for 'The Queen.'
I am in a fabulously lucky position in that I get to wear beautiful, beautiful gowns for functions, which I can then give back. That way, they're not sitting in my wardrobe with me looking at them and feeling guilty. I love that, and I think when people have a fabulous function to go to, I'd recommend renting.
I think every woman in our culture is a feminist. They may refuse to articulate it, but if you were to take any woman back 40 years and say, 'Is this a world you want to live in?' They would say, 'No.'
Flesh sells. People don't want to see pictures of churches. They want to see naked bodies.
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.
I don't like the word 'strong,' because a strong character is never an interesting character. A character is made interesting by their vulnerabilities and their weaknesses.
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.
I still suffer terribly from stage fright. I get sick with fear. Not every night, but at the beginning and on occasion - not necessarily when I'm expecting it. You just have to cope with it - take it on the chin and work through it, trying to use the adrenalin to perform.
I don't believe that if you do good, good things will happen. Everything is completely accidental and random. Sometimes bad things happen to very good people and sometimes good things happen to bad people. But at least if you try to do good things, then you're spending your time doing something worthwhile.
When you're young and beautiful, you're paranoid and miserable.
My dad's Russian. My mother's English. I would say my bottom half is Russian.
There is that awful moment when you realize that you're falling in love. That should be the most joyful moment, and actually it's not. It's always a moment that's full of fear because you know, as night follows day, the joy is going to rapidly be followed by some pain or other. All the angst of a relationship.
I resent having witnessed the survival of some very mediocre male actors and the professional demise of the very brilliant female ones.
I don't share lots of the phobias that horror movies tap into. I don't mind spiders or snakes or darkness.
You can't control how other people see you or think of you. But you have to be comfortable with that.
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.
I have no maternal instinct whatsoever. Motherhood holds no interest for me.
It'll be the Internet and piracy that will kill film. There's a philosophy that the Internet should be free, but the reality is that piracy will destroy the film industry and film as an art form because it's expensive to make a movie. Maybe you'll have funky little independent movies, and it'll go back and then start up again some other way.
I was never a left-winger, actually. I was a pretend left-winger because it was more interesting than being a right-winger.
I don't get to play the same role over and over in different movies. The roles that I get to play are quite varied, which is great.
The poor Oscars - they always get slammed in the press.
It's so hard when you're young to look at older people and understand that they have been where you are. It's the weirdest thing. You just can't get your head around that, can you? You can't get your head around the fact that someone who is 60 was once 16, if you're 16. But the fact is they have been, and they remember it.
Wherever I am in the world, if I get free time when I'm filming I always hire a car, take to the road, drive for miles and explore.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The great marriages are partnerships. It can't be a great marriage without being a partnership.
The trick in life is learning how to deal with it.
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.
Actors are rogues and vagabonds. Or they ought to be.
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.
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.
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.
Hollywood is a very small world; the people who matter matter, and the people who don't matter are just like nothing.
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.'
I'm not a communist, of course. But I do think that everything is down to economics. Capitalism doesn't change.
I learned quite early on in life that we are all two people. And one of those people none of us will ever know.
I'd describe myself as a Christian who doesn't believe in God.
There's no good way to waste your time. Wasting time is just wasting time.
There's nothing sexy about doing a nude scene. It's rather uncomfortable. I like dressing up rather than dressing down.
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.'
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.
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