Dame Helen Mirren, 78, has been an emblem of grace and style on the red carpet since the late 1970s. She’s amazed the audience many times with her daring outfits and looks, but this time, she’s caught everyone’s attention in a whole new way. Many people were stunned when they saw a photo of the actress in her bikini on vacation in Italy.
She admits that this photo will ’haunt’ her for the rest of her life.
In 2008, Helen Mirren, at that time 63 years old, stunned the public with her bikini photoshoot. The photo quickly went viral. The Oscar-winning actress became something of a post-mid-life beauty symbol. Reflecting on the photo, Mirren expressed, “I think this thing will haunt me for the rest of my life,” as she was surprised to see this photo in all the major tabloids.
The actress also revealed she was just trying to look good for her husband, Taylor Hackford, “So we were there, swimming a little bit, lying in the sun, and Taylor said, ’Stand up, I want to take a picture of you.’ So I stood up and sucked my tummy in because my husband was taking my photo. I tried to suck my cheeks in. I tried to look good.”
This unexpected fame opened up some business opportunities for her.
Simon Mirren, Helen’s nephew, said that his aunt received a lot of business prospects but showed no interest in capitalizing on this photo. Simon recalled, “I begged her to turn us all into millionaires by marketing bikinis after everyone went wild over her fit bikini body but she said absolutely no. She won’t brand herself like that.”
It’s not the first time an actress has challenged age stereotypes.
The actress unveiled her “radical” hairstyle while promoting her role as Hespera, the villain in Shazam! Fury of the Gods. The actress acknowledged that after growing her hair, she kind of liked it and didn’t feel like cutting it.
During a recent TV appearance, Mirren challenged the fact that older women are discouraged from having long hair because it tends to thin with age. The actress refuted this notion, stating that there is a general belief that one should not have long hair after a certain age.
The Oscar-winning actress hasn’t had long hair since her twenties. She liked the way it looked and decided to keep it. “I thought, do you know what, it’s pretty cool, I think I’ll stick with it for a little while. It will come off eventually…but I’m kind of enjoying it, it’s quite radical,” the actress said.
Mirren also expressed her pride in representing women over 60, stating that creativity, passion, and energy do not stop unless one decides to stop them. “So it’s just self-motivated, really, and never give up. And find enjoyment, if it’s possible in your life,” she shared.
Dame Helen Mirren has also been vocal about defying beauty standards for older women, citing that her generation has been subject to ageism for too long. She also voiced her frustration with beauty products being marketed with 15-year-old models in a 2019 interview.
The actress has her own views on beauty too, and it’s refreshing to hear someone in the public eye acknowledge that the idea can be exclusionary and make people feel insecure about themselves. “They’ll think, ’Well, I’m not very beautiful. It’s all very well for all these beautiful women, but I don’t feel beautiful,’” she explained.
For Mirren, it’s important for everyone to feel confident and fabulous, regardless of their looks. “Being powerful is so much more interesting than being beautiful,” the actress has always thought.
On a different note, Mirren revealed that she performed her own stunts on the set of Shazam! Fury of the Gods. “I was incredibly brave and didn’t say anything or complain because I wanted to be a real ’stunty’ person,” the actress proudly shared.
It’s great to see actors who are dedicated to their craft and willing to take risks for their performances.
Demi Moore, 61, also fights stereotypes that older women shouldn’t wear bikinis in her latest video, but the public is divided.
Gracefully aging, Helen Hunt is as beautiful today as she was five decades ago
In the 1990’s, Hunt was a household name with her breakout TV performance in the hit comedy series Mad About You, where she starred opposite Paul Reiser, who later starred in the Netflix series, Stranger Things.
She won four back-to-back Emmy Awards and three Golden Globes for her comedic portrayal of one half of a newlywed couple. She also directed some episodes, including the series finale in 1999.
Speaking with People, Hunt shared about her daughter and Reiser, “… My daughter loves Stranger Things so now when he calls she’s excited. She’s never seen an episode of Mad About You but she’s super psyched about Stranger Things!” Hunt has one daughter, born in 2004, with Matthew Carnahan, her partner of 16 years.
Hunt is also known for playing a storm chaser in the adrenaline-fueled movie Twister (1996), her Academy Award-winning role in 1997’s As Good as it Gets, starring next to Hollywood royalty, Jack Nicholson, and 2000’s Cast Away and What Women Want.
More recently, she plays a journalist in BBC’s World on Fire and has a recurring character on Blindspotting. She’s also loaned her skills as a director to shows like Californication, House of Lies and This is Us.
In 2021, she revealed she was working on a Twister reboot with a diverse cast of storm chasers “from HBCU [historically Black college and university],” but the story was rejected.
“I tried to get it made,” Hunt said in 2021. “I was going to direct it… We could barely get a meeting, and this is in June of 2020 when it was all about diversity. It would have been so cool.”
Universal Pictures is releasing Twisters, without Hunt, in July 2024.
Over the years, Hunt, who’s collected numerous awards and nominations, has been a staple in Hollywood culture with her timeless performances and beauty.
As one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood–a face that through the years has matured, she’s recently been the topic of many conversations.
With a career spanning more than four decades, it’s common, and expected, that there would be natural physical changes but, as a celebrity, Hunt is not immune from unfiltered opinions coming from the public.
Speculation that she had plastic surgery started after an accident in 2019, where the SUV she was a passenger, was t-boned by another car, causing it to rollover. She was briefly hospitalized but fully recovered, and within one week, she was back to work filming the limited series reboot of Mad About You.
Speaking with People about reprising her role, Hunt said, “It was a very loving piece of work. We loved it. It would be fun to work on something that’s really about love. We’ll be older though — I hope people are prepared for that. I’m not prepared for it!”
Shortly after, Radar Online, posted an article suggesting the star too much plastic surgery. In the story, she’s referred to as “ageless,” followed by “mannequin-like” and “…her expression more static than usual.”
Fans however were quick to defend her. One wrote, “I’m not an expert on spotting facelifts and that but to me Helen Hunt today still looks like Helen Hunt from Mad About You, just older. Which is what happens when 3 decades pass, people get older.” Another wrote, “I think we are so used to seeing women who have puffed up their lips and lifted both eyes and forehead, that a woman who is aging normally looks odd to us.”
Tight-lipped about the rumours that she’s had a nip and tuck to smooth the wrinkles on her face, it’s possible that Hunt benefits from a makeup artist, who can achieve the same results with some magical strokes of their brush.
In fact, there are many Hollywood beauty secrets that keep celebrities looking ageless. Pairing a healthy diet and exercise with pricey non-surgical spa treatments have proven results!
Hunt is very active and isn’t shy about showing off her fit physique. In an interview, she explained “As a general rule, I tend to move. I don’t go to a gym ever. I don’t diet ever. I used to diet, but sometime after the eighties, it made me miserable, but I do like to walk, run, and I do like to surf when I can just to warm it up, and I do enjoy doing yoga when I can get there.”
As we all know, being a woman in Hollywood can be quite a challenge.
In a 2019 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Hunt discussed how she has experienced being objectified throughout her career and how she hopes to help create a more inclusive.
“What are the great movies for younger women where they’re the protagonist [being] made now? You know what I mean? The whole thing — there’s no equal rights amendment. We’re fucked,” Hunt told Huffington Post in 2015.
Over the years, Hunt has been involved in various advocacy and philanthropic efforts to support women’s rights and empowerment – speaking up against objectification of women.
”I certainly drive around and I’m tired of the billboard where she’s barely in her underwear and they’re selling, you know, a watch or something,” Hunt said.
”I’m over it, to be honest.”
Facing judgements from the public can’t be easy, especially for celebrities who are out there doing their jobs, which is entertaining us.
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