Dame Helen Mirren doesn’t think her marriage would have lasted if she had settled down earlier.
The 68-year-old actress wed director Taylor Hackford in 1997 after 12 years together, and though they are incredibly happy and she sometimes regrets not meeting him when they were younger, she thinks their relationship is stronger for it.
She said: "I used to say to Taylor, ‘Oh why didn’t we meet earlier?’ But it’s a really good thing, because we probably wouldn’t be together now. I couldn’t have dealt with him earlier on."
The ‘Queen’ actress insists she has no regrets about never having had a child because her work has always come first.
Speaking to the June/ July issue of AARP the magazine, she said: "I never felt the need for a child and never felt the loss of it. I’d always put my work before anything."
Helen was drawn to acting because it offered her solitude, and insists spending lengthy periods of time alone have never made her "crazy".
She said: "It’s a very lonesome operation. I’m perfectly happy being on my own. It doesn’t make me crazy."
While she will happily speak her mind in interviews, the veteran actress has no desire to air her thoughts via social media, and thinks sites such as Twitter are like "stinky old pubs".
She said: "It reminds me of a stinky old pub. In the corner would be this slightly disgusting old man who sits there all day, every day. If you went up and talked to him, you’d get the kind of grumpy, horrible old meaningless s**t that you read on Twitter."
Helen Mirren glad she waited to wed
