Helen Mirren has described her Oscar win as both 'terrifying and incredible.'
Helen Mirren
Mirren got her hands on the biggest prize back in 2006, when she scooped the Best Actress Oscar for her performance as Elizabeth II in the critically acclaimed The Queen, which saw her team up with director Stephen Frears.
The script was penned by Peter Morgan and followed the Queen in the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana - where she had to struggle between being the queen and a grandmother.
Mirren's central performance brought her critical acclaim and a whole host of awards - she also scooped the Golden Globe, Bafta, and Screen Actors Guild Award for her terrific central performance. And she admits that everyone was expecting her to win the Oscar at the end of the awards season.
Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, the actress said: "I must confess it was rather expected. Everybody was saying, 'There's no competition, you're going to win.' But of course you can't be sure. I felt like I'd already won just by being there. The Queen was a role that had filled me with trepidation but I never imagined that it would end in this.
"When you win it is incredibly intense. All your family are watching, all of Britain is watching, five billion people all over the world are watching, all of your contemporaries are watching. And the knives are out ready to stab you for putting a foot wrong. It's terrifying and incredible."
While Mirren had dominated the awards season that year, she did face some tough competition as she was nominated alongside Penelope Cruz (Volver), Judi Dench (Notes on a Scandal), Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada), and Kate Winslet (Little Children).
Amazingly, that was the first time that Mirren had been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar - she had been nominated twice for Best Supporting Actress for her work in The Madness of King George and Gosford Park in 1994 and 2001.
However, she picked up a second Best Actress nomination three years later for her performance in The Last Station - she lost out to Sandra Bullock for her work in The Blind Side.
As for Mirren, she will be back on the big screen in April as she teams up with Ryan Reynolds for Woman in Gold. Directed by Simon Curtis, Woman in Gold tells the story of Maria Altmann, a Jewish refugee who takes on the government to recover artwork that she believes belongs to her family.
Mirren has also completed work on Eye in the Sky and Trumbo. Eye in the Sky is directed by Gavin Hood and will see the actress star alongside Aaron Paul and Alan Rickman, while Trumbo will see her work with Bryan Cranston. The biopic follows the career of Hollywood writer Dalton Trumbo and how it came to an end in the 1940s when he was labelled a Communist. Elle Fanning, Diane Lane, Alan Turdyk, and John Goodman complete the cast list.
Woman In Gold is released 10th April.
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