Helen Mirren praises Meghan, says she was 'fantastic addition to royal family': 'Didn’t seem to be neurotic'
Dame Helen Mirren, who won an Oscar for her performance as Queen Elizabeth II in the 2006 movie 'The Queen', applauded Harry and Meghan Markle for their decision to step down as senior members of the royal family and earn a living on their own.
“I think their instincts are absolutely right, and I applaud them for it. Hugely actually. Of course, it is complicated," she told Variety in an interview this week at the Berlin Film Festival, where she is slated to receive the Honorary Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement on Thursday, February 27.
Calling the former 'Suits' actress "a fantastic addition to the royal family", Mirren, 74, added that the first biracial duchess of the British monarchy was "charming, did everything right, was gracious, was sweet natured, and seemed to be... Didn’t seem to be neurotic..."
She added with a laugh: “So, I think it is a loss in a way, but at the same time I think their instincts are absolutely correct. And I think it will all, hopefully, sort itself out, and the tabloid pearl-clutchers will get over their trauma at not having someone to attack all the time. They’ll find another victim… probably me."
The British-born actress also went onto list former Prime Minister of her homeland Margaret Thatcher as her “greatest female role model." She explained her pick by adding that it was “not because I believed in her politics – I absolutely did not. I don’t think she was a great person as a person.”
However, as a little girl who saw Thatcher on television, she asked her mother, “Mummy who’s that?” and her mother would reply, “That is the Prime Minister of England.”
Mirren said that the response of her mother left her in awe as a child. “Then that 4-year-old’s head goes: ‘Women can be Prime Minister of England.’ That wasn’t the case when I was 4 years old,” she said.
