Helen Mirren’s Secrets to Life, Love and Happiness

The British actress looks back on the hard-won lessons of her remarkable career

Eric Spitznagel,

AARP

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Published October 04, 2024

Helen Mirren in front of blurred body of water under blue sky

Helen Mirren hasn’t slowed down with age; if anything, she seems to be getting warmed up.

AARP (Arnold Jerocki/Getty Images)

It’s always a happy day when another Helen Mirren movie appears on the horizon.

On Oct. 4, at the ever-youthful age of 79, she returned to the big screen in White Bird, based on a best-selling graphic novel of the same name. Mirren plays a grandmother who teaches her grandson about kindness, telling him the tumultuous tale of her childhood in France during World War II. We don’t know about you, but we can’t imagine a better remedy for 2024 than Mirren giving the entire world a lesson in kindness.

And that’s just the beginning of the projects we can expect soon from Mirren. She’s in the middle of shooting The Thursday Murder Club, based on the popular book series, where she and Pierce Brosnan, 71, Sir Ben Kingsley, 80, and Celia Imrie, 72, keep retirement interesting by solving cold murder cases. It’s due in theaters next year. Mirren also wrapped filming on the second season of 1923, a Yellowstone prequel in which she plays the powerful Dutton family matriarch Cara opposite Harrison Ford. Although Paramount+ hasn't shared an official release date, there are reports it could return as soon as early 2025.

The phenomenon that is Dame Mirren didn’t happen overnight. Her talent and ambition took her from the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she played to packed houses in her early 20s, to her first substantial film, 1969’s Age of Consent (with James Mason). More than half a century later, her résumé is like a master class in acting, including roles in the critically acclaimed and beloved films Gosford Park (2001), The Long Good Friday (1980), The Madness of King George (1994), Trumbo (2015) and an Oscar-winning turn as Queen Elizabeth in The Queen (2006).

She hasn’t slowed down with age; if anything, Mirren seems to be getting warmed up. In 2022, she was featured on the cover of People magazine’s Beautiful Issue. She received a SAG (Screen Actors Guild) Life Achievement Award the same year, and as she joked during her acceptance speech, “I hate to say SAG at my age. It’s always S-A-G for me.”

She was also one of a handful of female icons (a list that included Viola Davis) with a doll created in her likeness by toymaker Mattel for International Women’s Day (March 8) this year.

Mirren has graced the pages of AARP publications no less than four times since 2007, and she’s always had something new and inspiring to teach us. We looked back at our favorite exchanges with the great Dame over the years and collected some of her most memorable words of wisdom.

After more than five decades in Hollywood, Helen Mirren has learned to love her age.

Growing old isn’t a curse

“The best thing about being over 70 is being over 70,” she told us. “Certainly when I was 45, the idea of being 70 was like, Arghhh! But you only have two options in life: Die young or get old. There is nothing else. The idea of dying young when you’re 25 is kind of cool — a bit romantic, like James Dean. But then you realize that life is too much fun to do that. It’s fascinating and wonderful and emotional. So you just have to find a way of negotiating getting old psychologically and physically.”

It’s a gift to outlive the ‘sexy’ label

When we asked Mirren if she considers herself a sex symbol, she laughed at the very notion. “Oh, they’re not thinking straight,” she told us before adding that one’s sex appeal “becomes less relevant with age, which is a good thing. Everything changes as we get older, and we have to applaud that fact, don’t we?”

Don’t be afraid to wait for the right turnip

“I always said I have nothing against marriage,” she told us, explaining why she waited until 52 to tie the knot with her husband, director Taylor Hackford. “It just wasn’t to my taste, like turnips. It took me a very long time to come round to acquiring the taste. I just had to meet the right turnip.”

Helen Mirren as Grandmère and Bryce Gheisar as Julian sitting at a table with food and wine in front of them in a still from White Bird A Wonder Story

Helen Mirren as Grandmère and Bryce Gheisar as Julian in the film, "White Bird."

Larry Horricks/Lionsgate

If something is worth doing, it’s worth a little discomfort

While shooting the 2005 HBO miniseries Elizabeth I, in which she played the titular role, Mirren never complained about the back pain that plagued her from the heavy costumes, her collaborators say. “I read an interview with Vivien Leigh in which she said that when she made Gone With the Wind, she felt that she would never have a role that great again,” Mirren says. “And I felt like that with Elizabeth. I just told myself, ‘You absolutely do this full on, full out, all the time. It doesn’t matter how you feel, how tired you are, how much pain you are in.’ I gave it everything that I had.”

Social media is the equivalent of the worst bar conversation you’ll ever have

“It reminds me of a stinky old pub,” she said when we asked her opinion of social media sites such as Facebook and X. “In the corner would be this slightly disgusting old man who sits there all day, every day. If you went up and talked to him, you’d get the kind of grumpy, horrible, moldy, old meaningless crap that you read on Twitter.”

Don’t put too much stock in awards — they aren’t real life

“Whenever you are nominated for anything, you enter into this marvelous, fantabulous bubble called the bubble of nomination,” says Mirren, who’s won numerous awards, including an Oscar, a Tony and several Emmys and Golden Globes during her career. “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.”

If you’re going to eat cheese, only eat the good stuff

“American cheddar is so ghastly.”

Helen Mirren as Cara Dutton and Robert Patrick as Sheriff McDowell sitting in chairs in a still from 1923

Helen Mirren as Cara Dutton and Robert Patrick as Sheriff McDowell in the Paramount+ series, "1923."

Christopher Saunders/Paramount+

We all find spirituality in our own ways

“I’m not religious. So if I say yes, there is a soul, it’s nothing to do with religion or God. But yes, I would say there is a spirituality in being a human being that is connected to the imagination in some way.”

True wisdom is realizing you don’t need to change everything about yourself

“Every year, I make the same New Year’s resolutions: I will not procrastinate,” she told us. “And every year, I procrastinate. I will be more communicative. And every year, I fail to be communicative. Certain character failings stay with you forever, it seems to me.”

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Eric Spitznagel is a features writer for AARP Members Edition. He was also a co-founding editor of The Arrow, AARP’s newsletter for Gen X men. He's been a regular contributor to magazines like Vanity Fair, Men's Health, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times, among others.

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