In case there was any doubt that Helen Mirren was cooler than you, all you need to do is watch a recently unearthed interview with the actress from 1975.
In the interview (below), Mirren is speaking with host Michael Parkinson, who asks Mirren oh-so subtly about her — ahem — body of work as an actress.
“Do you find that in fact, what could best be described as your equipment hinders you in the pursuit of being a successful actress?” Parkinson asks.
Mirren proceeds to get quite a kick out of extracting exactly what Parkinson means by “equipment.” “You mean my fingers?” she asks to the delight of the audience.
When Parkinson finally outright asks if Mirren’s voluptuous figure hinders her from being a serious actress, she replies, “Because serious actresses can’t have big bosoms, is that what you mean?”
“I can’t think that can necessarily be true,” she says. “What a crummy performance if people are obsessed with the size of your bosom or anything else. I would hope the performance, the play and the living relationship between all the people on the stage and all the people in the audience overcome such boring questions.”
Mirren is widely regarded as one of the greatest living actresses today.
She has been nominated for four Academy Awards, winning in 2007 for “The Queen.”
She has also won four Emmys and a Tony over the course of her career.