Helen Mirren pens memoir

The Oscar winning actress talks about her new book “In the Frame,” her mother and what a palm reader predicted for her

You know why people say about Helen Mirren when she came to her success later on in life. But you had an experience, Matt alluded to it at the top of this half hour. When you were 23, that made you realize (Yes) ok, I might get success later on?

Well yes, I was very confused at the age of twenty-three, I think the twenties was a very difficult time, actually much more difficult in your teens. You don’t know whether your dreams are gonna come true or not. You, suddenly reality strikes you in the face, you’ve got to do with life and all its difficulties. And I was very unhappy and confused, and I went to a shrink first, and that didn’t work out for various reasons that I described in the book. So then I was told about a hand..a guy who reads hands, so I went to this guy, and he was a funky little old guy in the backstreet in London. And he said write this down, because you’ll forget what I am going to say to you, and he gave me sheets of paper and a pencil, and he started, he spoke really fast. And I wrote wrote wrote wrote wrote, like paper after paper after paper. And I worked out. Then I had this huge sheaf of papers. It was absolutely right. I could hardly remember what he said, but my whole life as it was to be revealed was there in these papers and I looked at them and I thought, you know what? I don’t want to know, I don’t want to know, I want my life to be an adventure and surprise. And I found the first rubbish bin I could find, trash can as you say, and I throw it into the trash can, but I did remember one thing that he said. And he said you will achieve fame and fortune but it won’t happen until (your) until you’re in your forties.

And you certainly did, I mean boy we know you are here in this country really as the queen. That’s how everybody thinks we…

No, before you knew Miss Jane Tennison, remember it?

Well, that’s true, too. But...

I will prefer being the police detective to the queen, it’s quite....you could

Right, but I am looking through the book, and I can’t even show these pictures, you know these picture.

Yes, yes…

Hello, very very racy pictures of a young woman.

Well, I lived with a wonderful photographer for four years, and we did erotic photographic work together. And that’s some of it, the small part of it.

But you’ve always been comfortable too in film with nudity. It’s ever been a big deal?

No, I was never comfortable.

No?

It's never comfortable to have you to be the only person on a set of a hundred and forty people and mostly men, and to be the only person with your cloth off. That’s never very comfortable situation, but I’ve dealt with it, and to got on with it. You know.

Yes. Congratulations on that Academy Award, by the way I’ve never had a chance to say that to you in person. Where is it?

Thank you, thank you, it’s in England actually. I took it back to England. And that’s enough for the Midland and America. I thought he he had to live in England. He's got a little gold scarf that was knitted by a fan, and I thought that was a very nice present for him.

And this is a lovely present for any of your fans. Great read, Helen Mirren, thank you.

Thank you, thank you very much.

So, Mirren's new book “In the Frame, My Life in Words and Pictures" available in bookstores right now.

shrink：Slang for a psychiatrist.