Dame Helen Mirren delightfully overshared at the Gotham Awards when she revealed that portraying the Queen didn’t stop her husband, Taylor Hackford, from wanting to “fuck [her] ever again.†This came as a surprise to exactly no one, as Mirren is a regulation babe. But although playing Her Majesty hasn’t hurt her sex life, it may have taken a toll on her ability to drop the occasional F-bomb without raising eyebrows.
“It’s ridiculously hypocritical of the whole world, of media, and everyone about swearing,†Mirren told Vulture at a cocktail reception for Woman in Gold hosted by the Weinstein Company. “I don’t like endless swearing, I don’t. But the reality is that’s the way most of us adults speak, actually — more or less. And certainly, in my profession, when I entered my profession as an actor, no one would say a sentence in England without using a swear word of some sort or another.â€
Mirren admits that her propensity for playing royalty (both onscreen and on the stage) has led people to mistakenly equate her with acting properly at all times, despite her potty-mouthed tendencies. “I think people are more shocked because it’s me saying it. They expect it of, I don’t know, maybe Johnny Depp or someone. But when it’s me, they go, ‘Oh my God, she said a swear word!’ Well, yeah. I’m not actually the Queen.â€