Dame Helen Mirren won an Oscar for playing Queen Elizabeth II in the 2006 film “The Queen.” But if she were really a royal, the actress says that she would have “a glass of Champagne while sitting on the throne.”
Mirren talked about the both the Queen and her upcoming Diamond Jubilee celebration in the new issue of the UK’s Woman & Home magazine.
“I couldn’t handle the rules the Queen has to live by at all and very few of us could. It’s a golden cage really. You’re never alone in that role – you are always surrounded by security,” she said. “If I were Queen for a day, I would like breakfast in bed and then I’d sneak out incognito and go shopping in Zara. At the end of the day, I’d have a glass of Champagne while sitting on the throne.”
While Mirren says she’d take the throne for 24 hours, she wouldn’t want it permanently.
“It’s not a role I’d covet for the long term,” she said.
While the Dame has lived in Los Angeles for years, she says that she very much misses the UK.
“I live in an English-speaking country, but there’s a huge gulf in the language. I miss the sense of British humor when I’m away. I still get wrong-footed in the US because Americans just don’t get our sense of irony,” she said. “Despite being largely based in Los Angeles, if someone asks me where I live, I still say London. For all its faults and all its virtues, I do love Britain and I often feel homesick when I’m away.”