Dame Helen Lydia Mirren DBE is a British actor who holds both British and American citizenship. Excelling on stage with the National Youth Theatre, Mirren’s performance as Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra in 1965 saw her invited to join the Royal Shakespeare Company before she made her West End stage debut in 1975. Since then, Mirren has also had success in television and film. She has achieved the Triple Crown of Acting in the US and the UK, the only person to do so in both countries. These Helen Mirren quotes will motivate you.
Best Helen Mirren Quotes
- “Women have got to stop being polite. If I ever had children, which I don’t, the first thing I’d teach a girl of mine is the words ‘f – off.'” ~ Helen Mirren
- “Being powerful is so much more interesting than being beautiful.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “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
- “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.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “I don’t think there’s anything on this planet that more trumpets life that the sunflower. For me that’s because of the reason behind its name. Not because it looks like the sun but because it follows the sun. During the course of the day, the head tracks the journey of the sun across the sky. A satellite dish for sunshine. Wherever light is, no matter how weak, these flowers will find it. And that’s such an admirable thing. And such a lesson in life.” ~ Helen Mirren
-
“You write your life story by the choices you make.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “When you’re young and beautiful, you’re paranoid and miserable.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “Fear can be one of the most destructive emotions. It is, of course, also very important, in that fear sometimes stops you from doing stupid things. But it can also stop you from doing creative or exciting or experimental things. It can cloud your judgment of others, and lead to all kinds of evil. The control and understanding of our personal fears is one of the most important undertakings of our lives.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “It seems to me that the years between eighteen and twenty-eight are the hardest, psychologically. It’s then you realize this is make or break, you no longer have the excuse of youth, and it is time to become an adult – but you are not ready.” ~ Helen Mirren
-
“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
- “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.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “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
- “A woman with knowledge is something that frightens the status quo quite a lot.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “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.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “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.” ~ Helen Mirren
-
“You can’t control how other people see you or think of you. But you have to be comfortable with that.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “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
- “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.'” ~ Helen Mirren
- “It was not my destiny, I kept thinking it would be, waiting for it to happen, but it never did, and I didn’t care what people thought … It was only boring old men who would ask me. And whenever they went, ‘What? No children? Well, you’d better get on with it, old girl,’ I’d say ‘No! F*** off!'” ~ Helen Mirren
- “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
- “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
- “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
-
“I’m a would-be rebel. The good girl who’d like to be a bad one.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “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
- “You could build three hospitals with the cost of one film and I take that very seriously.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “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
- “I think still it is very fine not to want children. There are far too many people in the world. It is my contribution to ecology.” ~ Helen Mirren quotes
- “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.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “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
-
“Being me right now is sort of amazing.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “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
- “Actors are rogues and vagabonds. Or they ought to be.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “Flesh sells. People don’t want to see pictures of churches. They want to see naked bodies.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “When I was about 25, I went to a hand reader, this Indian guy in a funky neighborhood. He said: The height of your success won’t happen until you’re in your late 40s.” ~ Helen Mirren
-
“The trick in life is learning how to deal with it.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “There’s no good way to waste your time. Wasting time is just wasting time.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “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
- “I woke up one day and realized I could never be an American.” ~ 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.” ~ Helen Mirren
-
“I am so happy that I didn’t have children. Well, you know, because I’ve had freedom.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “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
- “I feel the written word, poetry and literature is just one of the most beautiful things that human beings do. So we have to fight for it.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “You have to go through the long, painful process of learning techniques to be able to recognize a “good accident” or a “bad accident.”” ~ Helen Mirren
-
“I loathe, I hate, chick flicks.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “English actors feel vaguely apologetic for being there at all. American actors know that the most important thing is to get one take out of fifty that is great, and they’ll go to any length to get it. The English are used to working within consistently small, low-budget things and think, I mustn’t waste their time.” ~ Helen Mirren
-
“There’s nothing sexy about doing a nude scene. It’s rather uncomfortable. I like dressing up rather than dressing down.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “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
- “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
- “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
-
“People become more interesting from about 25 – they develop character and their personalities come out.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “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
- “When I came into the acting profession, it was quite hierarchical. You didn’t sit at the same table as the leading actor. Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir John Gielgud… these were very, very intimidating and powerful people.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “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
- “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
- “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.” ~ Helen Mirren
-
“I drink just as much tea when I’m in Los Angeles as I do when I’m in London. I take my tea bags with me wherever I go.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “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
- “The control and understanding of our personal fears is one of the most important undertakings of our lives.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “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.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “I’ve not won different awards – many, many times – so luckily I’ve practiced that whenever you are nominated for anything, you enter into this marvelous, fantabulous bubble called the bubble of nomination. The minute the envelope is opened and your name isn’t called out, the bubble bursts. And no one calls you up the next day to say, ‘So sorry you didn’t win,’ or ‘You looked gorgeous – nothing. If you win, you get about another 24 hours in that lovely bubble and then – pop – you are slightly wet all over from the bubble and realize that you have to get on with real life.” ~ Helen Mirren
- “I was never a left-winger, actually. I was a pretend left-winger because it was more interesting than being a right-winger.” ~ Helen Mirren
