Dame Helen Mirren: Acting is a roller coaster adventure
Dame Helen Mirren has reflected on her career in the movie business.
Dame Helen Mirren relishes the "roller coaster adventure" of acting.
The 80-year-old actress has enjoyed a hugely successful career in the movie business, starring films such as The Queen, Hitchcock, Eye in the Sky, and Red, and Helen admits that she still gets a huge thrill from appearing on-screen.
The award-winning actress told Variety: "The roller coaster adventure is the most exciting."
Helen has always considered herself to be a "rogue and a vagabond", and she feels proud of what she's achieved in her career on stage and screen.
Helen said: "I identify more with that side of my profession than anything grand or, for lack of a better word, posh.
"I started in the theatre in a communal sense, where you are all in it together, you know. It wasn’t a star system or anything like that. That was my first love of performing, of telling stories. … My whole life has been spent now, not so much camping out by the side of the street, but certainly in hotels. My whole life has been packing and unpacking."
Despite her successes, Helen has always struggled with self-doubts, too.
The veteran star suggested that actors and actresses are often more insecure than the public may think.
She explained: "The thing that drives me is my insecurity, actually, really more than anything, but at the same time, I guess self-knowledge is a help in that sense. I’m curious about the world in general, and I’ve always felt the only way to overcome lack of self-confidence is to stop thinking about yourself and think about other people or the world around you, or, you know, other things that go outward rather than go inward.
"The way to deal with it is to look outward. And also, I think a lot of actors have that because it seems contradictory that, you’re so unself confident that you put yourself in front of other people. There is a reason for which often people become actors, and it is related to finding it hard to negotiate in the real world."
Last year, Helen admitted that she always finds starting a new job to be a "nerve-racking" experience.
She told People: "I think it's because every project that you go into is an unknown.
"And each time you enter into a new project, you never know how it's going to be or how the people are going to be and whether the chemistry will be good or a disaster. So stepping into a project is nerve-racking."
