Dame Helen Mirren lets her “radical” hair down
Dame Helen Mirren has put her foot down over the idea that older women are meant to keep their hair short.
While chatting to Lorraine Kelly on the UK breakfast TV show Lorraine, the award-winning actress - who has openly spoken out in the past against ‘beauty standards’ and the unfair stereotypes imposed on her generation - shared her latest take on the matter.
“You’re not supposed to have longer hair after a certain age,” the 77-year-old stated.
“But during Covid, I started growing my hair and I hadn’t actually had long hair since I was in my 20s,” she continued. “And it sort of grew and grew and grew, and I couldn’t be bothered to cut it, basically.
“I thought, ‘do you know what? It’s pretty cool, I think I’ll stick with it for a little while. It will come off eventually’.
“But I’m kind of enjoying it, it’s quite radical.”
And when it came to the idea that Helen was “fly[ing] the flag” for women over 60, the actress shared that “life doesn’t stop. And creativity doesn’t stop and passion doesn’t stop and energy doesn’t stop, unless you decide to stop it.
“So it’s just [to] be self-motivated, really, and never give up. And find enjoyment, if it’s possible in your life.”
Helen has been stunning with her long hair and natural glow for years, on film sets and red carpets alike, and speaking out against ageism in life and the industry alike for many before that.
In a 2021 interview with The Cut, she confessed she was opposed to the term ‘anti-ageing’, and that she found it to be quite “demeaning”.
“We age. It happened. I’m really sorry, but you know what? It happens, and there’s no way out,” she explained.
“It’s a part of the human condition. So to talk about ‘anti-ageing’ is like saying ‘anti-human’, ‘anti-real’, ‘anti-wisdom’, ‘anti-experience’, and so on, you know?
“But you can put on your best possible face. It doesn’t mean you have to go, ‘oh my God, it’s all over for me!’ because it’s not all over for you … in a way, with each era, it’s the start of something new, so I absolutely believe in beauty products for all ages, and all skin types, but I don’t like the word ‘anti-ageing’. I think it’s demeaning, actually.”
Similarly, in 2019, she told Grazia that ageism had been forced upon her generation for “far too long”.
“It’s extremely annoying to women of my generation and others following mine to have beauty products sold on a 15-year-old face,” she said.
Helen went on to explain in the interview that she didn’t feel comfortable using terms like “beauty” in that context, as it led those who are insecure about their appearance feel “immediately excluded” from the conversation.
As she explained, “they’ll think ‘well, I’m not very beautiful. It’s all very well for these beautiful women, but I don’t feel beautiful’.
“I don’t want to exclude these people from feeling fabulous about themselves.”
Images: Getty