306 Quotes by Helen Mirren

I became an actress because I discovered the world of the imagination when I was about 14 or so and the concept that you could engage in this amazing world of storytelling. I saw a production of Hamlet, and I didn’t know Hamlet died in the end.

I believe in meditation – it’s a good tool to centre yourself, but unfortunately, I’m too lazy to do it. It’s very hard work, and I prefer to watch ‘Nothing To Declare’ on TV!

I don’t share lots of the phobias that horror movies tap into. I don’t mind spiders or snakes or darkness.

I always feel when you work with an artist and whenever I work with a really good photographer, I try to give him or her their own artistic freedom because that’s the way you get the best work or at least the most interesting work.

I’m under the impression that this notion of decency is disappearing from our society where conflicts are made worse on cinema and on television, where people are nasty and cruel on the Internet and where, in general, everybody seems to be very angry.

My dad’s Russian. My mother’s English. I would say my bottom half is Russian.

I think a lot of my work has been a weird attempt to liberate myself, but it’s not altogether successful.

You have to go through the long, painful process of learning techniques to be able to recognize a “good accident” or a “bad accident.”

Writers can get very angry when an actor says, “I don’t know, I don’t feel very comfortable with this line.” Sometimes though, you’re working with a writer for whom that is simply not apt – like Harold Pinter.