Dame Helen Mirren says she has made an “endless litany” of mistakes throughout her decades-long career.
The Oscar winner, 78, who became interested in acting after seeing a production of ‘Hamlet’ as a child, is laden with awards and was made a dame for her services to the drama in 2003.
But in the new issue of My Weekly magazine she is quoted as saying about how she got to the top through trial and error: “I turned down projects I should have said yes to and I should have said no to, I had relationships with people I shouldn’t have had relationships with, I got drunk at times when I shouldn’t have gotten drunk.
“There have been an endless litany of mistakes and missteps, but somehow I’ve ended up being in the right place at the right time.”
Helen, who grew up in working-class London, became the youngest actress ever invited to join the Royal Shakespeare Company at the age of 21, but it took decades more work to achieve mainstream success in Hollywood.
He previously told Closer: “I wanted fame when I was 22 years old. I had some kind of success in Britain.
“But international success did not come until after I was 40.”
Helen added that she loved Shakespearean melodrama before turning to acting: “I was blown away by all this over-the-top drama (when I first saw ‘Hamlet’).
“We grew up with television and never went to the movies… all I wanted was to enter that world where all these fabulous things were possible.”
After her breakthrough role in 1980’s “The Long Good Friday,” Helen’s other notable film appearances include “Cal” in 1984, for which she won the Cannes Film Festival Prize for Best Actress, and “The Cook , The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover” in 1989, before appearing in a string of action blockbusters including 2010’s “Red,” “Red 2” and the “Fast and Furious” film franchise.
