This week, we’re honoring a real Dame. And not in a musical theater way, or a cheesy black and white gangster movie sort of way, or a construction worker complimenting your derriere on the way to work sort of way. No, this week’s Comediva of the Week is a Dame, as in, Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, thank you very much. And that’s just one of the many, many ways in which Dame Helen Mirren is way more badass than you or me, or, let’s face it, 99 percent of all of the comedivas walking on planet Earth.
Just how badass is Helen Mirren? Well, to start with, the woman is sixty-six years old and she just beat Jennifer Lopez, Pippa “best ass ever” Middleton and Elle “The Body” MacPherson out for a “Body of the Year” title in a poll conducted by L.A. Fitness. And we’re not talking about a body that’s been maintained by botox or liposuction here, either. Helen may have had a little discrete work, goodness knows most women who stand in front of a camera for a living have, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her. She wears her discrete, but definitely present, wrinkles and graceful tummy pooch with pride. She’s not pretending to be forty. She’s just so goddamn hot that she can look her age and STILL be hotter than all the other ladies in the room.
But having a slamming body after sixty-five is only a small part of what puts Helen at the top of my “Comedivas I’d Like to be When I Grow Up” list. She’s also beyond talented, hilarious, wildly successful, and, most importantly, completely at home in her own skin.
That last bit, I suspect, is the secret to all the other things that make Helen Mirren so eye-poppingly awesome. Whether she’s playing a dramatic role or a comic one, she uses that same unshakeable sense of her own worth to make her characters both bigger than life and completely familiar and accessible.
It’s the same self-confidence that makes her such a believable royal in The Queen that makes roles like her Martha Stewart-with-an-assault-rifle character in RED so hilariously terrifying. Helen carries both roles off with the same unwavering confidence that lets her outshine every ingénue on the red carpet. She may not be what you expect her to be, but you will, by god, love her for who she is.
Victoria in RED is a perfect example of how Helen does funny. She blithely mixes floral arranging and contracted murder with a quietly outrageous dignity that makes you feel a little slow when your mind is blown by the fact that she’s talking about the proper way to use a doily and the right way to clean a semi-automatic in the same sentence.
Practicing self confidence as an extreme sport is also the secret sauce that makes Helen so gorgeous. There aren’t a lot of women of any age who would agree to be photographed, sans makeup and clothes, in the bathtub for an interview. But Helen not only agreed to the shoot with “New York Magazine,” she looked freakin’ amazing in the pictures. Which proves, once and for all, why we’re looking to her for inspiration. It’s not makeup or diets or workouts (though Helen judiciously employs all three) that make Helen so gorgeous, funny and all around breathtakingly girl-crush-worthy. Her superpowers come from the fact that she doesn’t disguise her inner divine goddess. She revels in it, whether it’s the broken down, damaged version in her portrayal of detective Jane Tennison on “Prime Suspect,” or her blithe, stay-calm-and-carry-on nanny to Arthur.
