Dame Helen Mirren admits she lacks confidence on the red carpet.
The 72-year-old actress doesn’t get scared ahead of big events, but she sometimes doesn’t feel comfortable with herself, so she’s very proud to be involved with L’Oréal Paris and The Prince’s Trust’s ‘All Worth It’ confidence training programme to help young people feel good about themselves.
She said: "Self-confidence is such a difficult thing to find. A lot of people talk to me nowadays, especially young people, about a lack of self-confidence and so that’s why I’m very happy to be involved in this initiative through the Prince’s Trust and L’Oreal who are sponsoring this movement to help young kids find self-confidence."
Asked if she gets nervous on the red carpet on UK TV show ‘Lorraine’, she added: "Of course, you know. It’s not really fear; it’s lack of self-confidence. It’s a feeling of a lack of self-worth maybe and I think women in particular maybe suffer from this and that’s why I think… [it’s] fantastic that this initiative is now online so kids can go online and look it up and find tools to help them through that."
And for those who are not confident, Helen advised the best thing to do is simply "fake it".
She said: "Fake it! Fake it and just continue faking it until weirdly it can become true. Faking it is very important."
The ‘Winchester’ actress – who is married to Taylor Hackford – compared the recent push for female equality within the entertainment industry as a "volcanic eruption" but admitted she thinks it should have happened long before now.
She said: "I think of it more of a sort of volcanic explosion than a tipping point. It’s like this volcano that’s been bursting and bursting and little cracks of smoke and fire have been coming out from time to time, finally the magma is appearing and it’s flowing down the sides of the hill. Certainly about time, definitely.
"It has come a long way but not nearly far enough it my opinion. It’s taken too long. Really, it’s taken too long. I was feeling and thinking those thoughts when I was in my teens and early twenties, I don’t understand why it’s taken so long to get here."
Helen Mirren isn’t always confident
