Envision yourself arriving at a stunning, lonely beach with the sound of waves crashing and seagulls gently singing in your ears. This calm and soothing atmosphere was soon dashed for Helen Mirren when she discovered she was being followed by a lone photographer.
Well, it is common for paparazzi photographers to be accused of going too far in their pursuit of sensational photographs of celebrities. This became evident when The Queen actress, who was on vacation with her husband Taylor Hackford, found herself in a haunting situation on a deserted beach. The paparazzi stalker nearly drove Mirren to believe she had lost her mind.
For the unversed, the British actress began dating American director Taylor Hackford in 1986. They got married in December 1997, having first met on the set of White Nights (1985).
Helen Mirren’s Experience with Creep Paparazzi
During one of her previous visits to the British chat show, Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, Helen Mirren recalled the photographer following her around surreptitiously, just to take her “picture”. She was on vacation with her spouse, Taylor Hackford.
“It completely took me by surprise and I mean, i was with my husband in Italy, somewhere where there’s no one. We climb over cactuses and bushes and over rocks, like miles away from anyone. We put our little things down in the water and I came out, took a photograph of Taylor as he’s standing there. And he said, ‘give me the camera and I will take a photograph of you’.. I was posing for my husband, holding my tummy, and just as he took the picture, I saw a flash of a lens..”
Mirren tried to brush it off as a coincidence at first, assuming it was merely her imagination. But her intuition told her otherwise, as she started seeing “a flash of a lens”:
“There’s nothing; no houses, no nothing, and I see a flash of a lens. Taylor says, ‘it was really funny’ because he was taking my photo and I suddenly dropped out of the frame on the floor. And i’m flat on the rock. I can’t believe it; there’s a photographer up there and Taylor turns around and the guy immediately ducks behind the cactus or something. And he’s gone.”
The Academy Award-winning actress then acknowledged experiencing a wave of paranoia as the photographer followed her around the desolate area, perhaps following her every move.
“I thought, ‘Oh, you honestly Helene you are a really tosser. You’re imagining the people following around you with the cameras.’”
Helen Mirren Got Candid About Being Over 70 in Hollywood
Helen Mirren is exactly where she wants to be, having been in the spotlight for over fifty years.
The 78-year-old actress admitted that she used to hate the thought of getting older, but she now realizes that it is a much better option than the alternative. In a conversation with AARP The Magazine, she disclosed (via PEOPLE):
“The best thing about being over 70 is being over 70. Certainly when I was 45, the idea of being 70 was like ‘Arghhh!’ but you only have two options in life: Die young or get old. There is nothing else. The idea of dying young when you’re 25 is kind of cool – a bit romantic, like James Dean. But then you realize that life is too much fun to do that.”
Besides, the Oscar winner has shown time and time again that life is not just for kids. Mirren waited until she was 38 to meet the love of her life, director Taylor Hackford. They have been together for almost 20 years. Prior to meeting Hackford, Mirren acknowledged that she prioritized her acting career over her relationships, and marriage was not a top concern:
“We got married in the end because we realized that we were going to be together forever. We got married, ultimately, for legal reasons more than anything else. Estate planning and other complicated things like that. And our families, we sensed, wanted us to be married.”
Her professional career has brought her several honors, including a 2014 BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement and a 2022 Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.
Her recent appearance was as a ‘narrator’ in the fantasy comedy Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig.
