20 August 2025<\/time>\n <\/p>\nDame Helen Mirren believes she could have been a competitive racing driver.<\/p>\n
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Dame Helen Mirren could have been a racing driver<\/p>\n
\nThe 80-year-old actress is “foolishly vain” about her skills behind the wheel and is convinced that if she hadn’t had such a successful screen career, she’d have done just as well on the race track.<\/p>\n
\nShe told People magazine: “I\u2019m rather foolishly vain about my driving. I\u2019m sure I could have been a racing car driver.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nAlthough Helen – who is married to director Taylor Hackford – turned 80 last month, she insisted she doesn’t “recognise” birthdays because “life rolls on” and isn’t interested in extravagant celebrations.<\/p>\n
\nShe said: \u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t celebrate birthdays. I don\u2019t recognise them because life just rolls on,.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI expect to be very, very nicely treated on my birthday. That\u2019s all I want. Cup of tea in bed in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nBut the Red star doesn’t expect a lie-in if she does get her cup of tea.<\/p>\n
\nShe admitted: \u201cIf I\u2019m still in bed after 8 o\u2019clock, I start feeling guilty. There\u2019s always stuff to do.\u201d <\/p>\n
\nOne thing that Helen dislikes about getting older is the way they can be written off by younger generations.<\/p>\n
\nShe said: \u201cPeople who are retired have had extraordinary, productive, challenging, difficult, professional lives, and they\u2019re not finished. It doesn\u2019t suddenly screech to a halt.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYounger people cannot comprehend the fact that the older generation had sex, had fun, danced, were obsessed with their hair and their weight. And of course, the older people are looking at them and going, \u2018You know what? We\u2019ve done that. We\u2019ve been there.’ “<\/p>\n
\nAnd the Oscar-winning actress hates being thought of as “sweet” just because of her age.<\/p>\n
\nShe fumed: \u201cOne thing that I find galling as I get older is the sort of patronising condescension: \u2018Oh, that\u2019s so sweet.’<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI hate the word feisty. I\u2019m alive. Don\u2019t give me those sort of awful labels.\u201d <\/p>\n
\nOver six months in 2024 and 2025, Helen had a string of projects on the go, including 1923, MobLand and The Thursday Murder Club but she enjoyed her “intense” schedule.<\/p>\n
\nShe said: \u201cIt was intense, but you just get into the rhythm of it.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cSometimes you have what I call a bit of a ‘car crash of projects,’ and they all want to go at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"20 August 2025 Dame Helen Mirren believes she could have been a competitive racing driver. Dame Helen Mirren could have been a racing driver The 80-year-old actress is “foolishly vain” about her skills behind the wheel and is convinced that if she hadn’t had such a successful screen career, she’d have done just as well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":188075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5398],"class_list":{"0":"post-188074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-make-up","8":"tag-dame-helen-mirren"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}