Dame Helen Mirren doesn't feel worthy of a lifetime achievement award.
Dame Helen Mirren is very 'self-critical'
The 76-year-old Hollywood legend is set to be honoured with just that at the SAG Awards in Los Angeles next week, but she has admitted she doesn't believe she is deserving of such an accolade, despite a storied career.
Mirren already has an Academy Award and a British Academy Film Award for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in 'The Queen', a Tony Award and a Laurence Olivier Award for the same role in 'The Audience', three BAFTAs for her performance as DCI Jane Tennison in 'Prime Suspect', and four Primetime Emmys.
Of her latest honour, she told the Mail on Sunday’s You Magazine: “It’s extraordinary.
“I genuinely do not feel I remotely deserve it, except that I’m still alive and working. I’ve done some wonderful films and I’ve done some pretty awful films. It took me by surprise, completely. A great honour.”
The 'Duke' star admitted she is very "self-critical" and expects to be "found out" any time now.
She confessed: “I think of myself as still being the way I was in my mind, in my body, through my twenties, thirties and forties: struggling, ambitious, frustrated and self-critical.
“I still feel the same person. I wonder if that ever goes? There’s always that endless, niggling feeling, ‘Oh god, I’m going be found out any minute now. I got away with it that time, but the next time I’ll be found out’. Because you can never be absolutely sure that you’re that good at what you do.”
Mirren added: “It’s not like being a doctor or a surgeon or an architect or a gardener where you can look at your work and go, ‘Oh yeah, that’s really good.’ It’s a much more mutable thing, our job.”
Tagged in Helen Mirren