14 DAY TRIAL // At 64 years of age and an incredibly successful career both home in the UK and abroad, in Hollywood, one could easily assume that up next on Dame Helen Mirren’s agenda was some time off for herself. Quite on the contrary, she reveals in a new interview with the Daily Mail, where she says she can hardly stand the thought of being unoccupied. As for what keeps her going – and gorgeous, while we’re at it – that’s sleep, Mirren explains.
Last summer, Mirren was photographed by paparazzi while on the beach with her husband. The photos, decked as she was in a red two-piece swimsuit, made headlines all over the world, revealing a figure that was both extremely toned and still curvy. She looked more like a 30something to 40 year-old woman than a grandmother of 63 and, despite her modesty in saying that the photos had been taken from a good angle, she has constantly been receiving praises for her amazing looks.
Helen Mirren’s beauty secret is sleep, of which she gets plenty, whenever she can. “I sleep. When I’m working really hard, I don’t party. I don’t go to the bar after work. I don’t go out to restaurants. I just go to bed. If I’m on a film, I even try to catch some sleep in my trailer at lunchtime. I really try to sleep as much as possible. It’s very important and, as you get older, it becomes more so,” the actress reveals for the Mail.
Despite the stress that goes into the issue of ageism in Hollywood and how most female stars are doing whatever they can to turn back (or at least to stop in their tracks) the hands of time, Dame Mirren is reconciled with the idea that there’s little she can do about it. She doesn’t fool herself into believing that she will live for ever or that she will have the same body she has now in 10 years. However, to limit the damages time could make, she eats healthy and works out.
“I come and go about exercise. I do do it, but honestly, it’s not particularly a beauty thing, it’s just that as one gets older, one has to keep up one’s energy levels, and if you want to do that, you can’t stop exercising. But you know, we can’t actually stay young, and it’s ridiculous to pretend we can. The reality is that life goes on – tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock! I call it growing up and, to me, it doesn’t make much difference whether I’m 63 and three quarters, or 64 and a half. You know? You just carry on, and hopefully you get more sensible as you get older, which is all that really interests me,” the actress further explains.