Helen Mirren Doesn’t ‘Want to Go Gracefully’

Helen Mirren Doesn’t ‘Want to Go Gracefully’
The Dame shared her personal battle with self-esteem - and why she plans to go down swinging.

Dame Helen Mirren has opened up about her experience with self-confidence as a young actress. Talking on ITV, the 72-year-old Oscar winner said that she was aware of gender inequality in Hollywood back in her twenties and struggled with low self-esteem herself.

“I was feeling and thinking those thoughts in my teens and early 20s”, she told The Daily Mail. “It’s a lack of self confidence, lack of self-worth maybe. I think women in particular suffer from this. But it’s a normal natural part of human life, so I say fake it and continue faking it until it weirdly becomes true!”

Mirren called the MeToo movement a “volcanic explosion” – but was quick to add that it had taken far too long for things to change. “It’s certainly about time. It has come a long way but not nearly far enough, and its taken too long in my opinion.”

She added that it was good to see more women working behind the camera, directing and producing. “That has changed and is changing, although not enough as I look around”.

The Dame also brushed off the idea that older actresses are expected to go gracefully. “I don’t really like the word ‘gracefully”, she told the New York Daily News. “There is something sort of weird about that. I mean, I want to rage into the night. I do not want to go gracefully at all.”

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