Dame Helen Mirren “prostitutes” herself “quite often”.

The 62-year-old Oscar-winning actress – who plays Grace Botempo, a whorehouse madam, in her new film ‘Love Ranch’ – thinks actors do the opposite of what women working in the sex industry do, but still have to use their assets to get work.

She explained: “The girls who work in the sex industry, they put themselves out of their bodies. An actor does sort of the opposite. People say ‘Oh, you play someone else.’ I’m always playing myself. You can only do it by going into yourself, in the deepest, most terrifying way.

“Not to say I haven’t ever prostituted myself quite often and happily. But in my heart it’s very serious.”

The British star – whose husband Taylor Hackford directed her new movie – loved working on the film because she got to act out her secret dream to be a “bad girl”.

She explained to New York magazine: “It’s amazing how quickly you get into dildos everywhere and pink-feather handcuffs. Within an hour you’re completely used to it.

“I’m still the good girl who wants to be a bad girl. But I’ll never make it as a bad girl … I’m not a prude or a moralist and I never have been, but I’m too fearful, too much of a wimp, really.”

Source: BANG Showbiz

For many years the Oscar-winning actress couldn’t see the point of getting wed, but was forced to change her mind by her husband, American director Taylor Hackford.

Helen said: “I saw marriage as losing my independence. Then, one day, I just felt it would be right.”

The 64-year-old star – who began dating Taylor in 1986 and tied the knot with him in 1997 – now loves being a wife.

She added to Women’s Weekly magazine: “I’d been with Taylor over a decade. He’d given me respect and loyalty and I trusted him 100 per cent.

“But I was terrified it would change our relationship. Then I work up the morning after the wedding, realised everything had changed and I loved it.

“I feel a shiver when I hear Taylor say ‘my wife’ and I get an enormous sense of pleasure when I say ‘my husband’.”

Before meeting Taylor, Helen dated several actors, including Nicol Williamson, Liam Neeson and Peter O’Toole.

Source: BANG Showbiz

The 64-year-old actress – who has stripped on screen in several films – insists baring all in front of the camera is “liberating” and she gets through it by refusing to think of the response from male fans.

She said: “As you get older naked stuff gets easier. It’s more to do with the role than what men in the audience think. There’s a liberation about it.”

The ‘Queen’ actress also spoke about her first encounters of sex, admitting she is still angry about losing her virginity.

She said: “It was the calumny of young men… My trustful romantic nature was badly let down, my feminism confronted… I am still p***ed off, actually.”

Despite her unsatisfying first sexual experience, Helen insists she has learned something from every man she has ever dated.

She said in an interview with Broadcast Now: “Ken Cranham, like all the men I have had a proper relationship with, left me a better person than he found me.”

Helen married her husband, American director Taylor Hackford, in 1997, 11 years after they started dating, and credits his fiery nature and honesty with keeping them together.

She explained: “Taylor can be turbulent, irrational and explosive. He has made me cry on many occasions… He is also the most unsexist man, looking women directly in the eye with no curtain of assumptions or prejudices to cloud his view. He is brave, loyal and supportive.”

Source: BANG Showbiz