Helen Mirren just opened up about the unsolicited piece of beauty advice she received from a peer early on in her career.
The actress was recently featured in The Hollywood Reporter‘s Drama Actress Roundtable alongside other industry titans like Niecy Nash-Betts, Keri Russell, Kathy Bates, Parker Posey and Cristin Milioti. When the group reflected on the problematic guidance they’d received throughout their careers, Mirren revealed the time she politely ignored the advice of someone who once tried to convince her to go under the knife.
“I was told to have a nose job in my 20s,” the 79-year-old said. “Someone said, ‘You’ll never get work if you don’t have a nose job.’ I said no. I didn’t want to be a pretty actress anyway. I elected to be not so pretty.”
Nash-Betts echoed Mirren’s sentiments, saying that, as an actor, she prefers not to look “beautiful” on camera. “I love being shiny in my real life,” she said. “On camera, don’t care. I want to look like a dog. It doesn’t bother me to disappear in some of those roles.”
Mirren’s admission is similar to that of Jamie Lee Curtis, who, a few weeks ago, opened up about getting an eyelift at 25 after a cinematographer on the set of Perfect said that her eyes were baggy. “I regretted it immediately and have kind of sort of regretted it since,” she told 60 Minutes.
The Mobland star has been pretty open about having a different perception of what the word “beauty” means. In 2024, she told People that being beautiful isn’t just about what people see on the exterior.
“Of course, there are many, many different kinds of beauty in the world; it’s a very broad term,” Mirren said. “Being an ambassador for a beauty products company, I always wanted to say, ‘We’re not trying to be beautiful, we’re trying to be authentically and genuinely and happily and positively ourselves, whether that’s beautiful or not.’”
