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.'
It has nothing to do with clothing or makeup. Just put your shoulders back and chin up, and face the world with pride.
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 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.
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?'
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.
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.
You can't control how other people see you or think of you. But you have to be comfortable with that.
I learned quite early on in life that we are all two people. And one of those people none of us will ever know.
You could build three hospitals with the cost of one film and I take that very seriously.
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.
People become more interesting from about 25 - they develop character and their personalities come out.
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 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.
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.
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.
I'm terrified of learning lines, and I've always been terrified that I won't learn them.
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.
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!
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.
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.
You have to go through the long, painful process of learning techniques to be able to recognize a "good accident" or a "bad accident."
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.
They’re called action scenes because they do the acting for you. You don’t have to act in action scenes.
Americans are very good at animating voices. I don't know why. They have a freedom with them that we British actors find more difficult to get to.
Acting is acting, but acting is different in almost always every project, and very, very different in this context.
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.
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 prefer the finesse of French humour. English humour is more scathing, more cruel, as illustrated by Monty Python and Little Britain.
It's outrageous. It's ridiculous. And 'twas ever thus. We all watched James Bond as he got more and more geriatric, and his girlfriends got younger and younger. It's so annoying.
The important thing is to bring people with Parkinson's into our world and for the public to have a real understanding of it, as they've beginning to have with autism.
What I feel personally and what I can act are two different things. Maybe one of the great pleasures of my job is being able to inhabit worlds that you are never going to inhabit personally.
Girls go out together to see a chick flick or something. I loathe, I hate, chick flicks.
Once a film gets into production, the actors sometimes begin to have more input than a writer does.
I always tell my husband, 'That's it, I quit, I've done all I wanted,' and he's just like, 'Yeah, yeah. Sure.'
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'm not a communist, of course. But I do think that everything is down to economics. Capitalism doesn't change.
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."