I met with Hitchcock when I was a very, very young actress just starting out and he was making 'Frenzy' in London and I was sent along to meet with him. He was very, very unimpressed with me and I have to say, I was rather unimpressed with him - but only because I was an arrogant, ignorant young actress.
— Helen Mirren
Nothing is quite so emotional and passionate as what goes on inside of a family. People are driven to distraction by a father or a mother or a husband. Or a child.
I have no maternal instinct whatsoever. Motherhood holds no interest for me.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Gardening is learning, learning, learning. That's the fun of them. You're always learning.
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.
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.
I think we all have a dream of what it would be like not to work and grow heirloom tomatoes, and I do have that dream. It would be lovely. I do love gardening and all of that, but I do love my work.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I was never a left-winger, actually. I was a pretend left-winger because it was more interesting than being a right-winger.
We're all idiots when we're young. We don't think we are, but we are. So we should be.
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.
I am not too keen on my nose, I don't like my knees, I hate my ankles, I am unsure about my behind, I don't like my legs at all. I am not too sure about my chin, my forehead is a bit dodgy. But, overall, I can live with it.
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!
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.
I believe kids shouldn't be taught Shakespeare. They should experience it first by seeing a great production.
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.
Sometimes nudity is sexy. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes being clothed is more sexy than being nude.
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.
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.
My dad's Russian. My mother's English. I would say my bottom half is Russian.
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.
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.
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 love photography, and I love the art of photography.
Girls go out together to see a chick flick or something. I loathe, I hate, chick flicks.
I was never that kind of star. I was never cast because I was gorgeous.
There's nothing sexy about doing a nude scene. It's rather uncomfortable. I like dressing up rather than dressing down.
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.
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.
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.
Hollywood is a very small world; the people who matter matter, and the people who don't matter are just like nothing.
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.
I'm terrified of learning lines, and I've always been terrified that I won't learn them.
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'd describe myself as a Christian who doesn't believe in God.
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.
I'll tell you what me scares me is plastic. Plastic bags and plastic bottles and these things. Why does my water have to be in a bloody plastic bottle? The landfill and the ocean. And I don't know, I'm just terrified with the proliferation of plastic.
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.
I don't share lots of the phobias that horror movies tap into. I don't mind spiders or snakes or darkness.
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.
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.
I resent having witnessed the survival of some very mediocre male actors and the professional demise of the very brilliant female ones.
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.
