Helen Mirren Once 'Desperately Wanted to Be Twiggy,' but Has Come to Embrace Her Individuality Instead (Exclusive)

It’s been two years since Helen Mirren covered PEOPLE’s Beautiful Issue, and the Oscar winner is still preaching the power of showing off.

The L’Oréal Paris ambassador spoke to PEOPLE this week from the Cannes Film Festival — where she’s promoting The most precious cargo — about your own path to self-acceptance.

Mirren, 78, admits there are “beautiful people” in the world, like Naomi Campbell and David Beckham, but she doesn’t fall into that category, “which is fine with me,” she says. “I look good, but I’m not that pretty. But we are all individuals and we all have our individuality. And I think ultimately it’s just accepting that and letting yourself be who you are.”

Despite this, Mirren notes that young women are “horribly vulnerable” to wanting to be something else. For the actress, it was the desire to be England’s “It” girl in the 60s.

“I desperately wanted to be Twiggy,” she says, “and I was absolutely not Twiggy in any sense.”

Helen Mirren, Andie MacDowell and Iris Berben at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

Mustafa Yalcin/Anadolu/Getty

However in 1923 the actress continues: “The real trick is to learn to accept yourself and love yourself, to accept your absolute individuality and be proud of it.”

Hot lady! Helen Mirren’s most famous moments of fashion and beauty

During her time in Cannes, Mirren also attended the Lights on Women Award ceremony on May 24, launched by L’Oréal Paris 2021 and celebrating up-and-coming female filmmakers.

The actress explains that filming is not without costs and “you have to have courage, enormous courage, spend other people’s money to realize your vision”. Through the awards, L’Oréal Paris gives women a platform to tell their stories, she explains.

Helen Mirren at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

“Bringing more women into the film means we get to see different stories told in different ways,” Mirren continues. “For the last 50 years, we’ve been told stories from a male perspective, and it’s about time we start seeing stories told from a female perspective.”

Helen Mirren dazzles in Cannes in sparkly dress, sharp eyeliner and super-long hair extensions

Walking the red carpet at Cannes can be “intense,” Mirren admits, though “I get excited as soon as I get there. It’s a wonderful mix of really serious, a real arthouse film festival where film is taken very seriously. And on top of that, there’s this incredible kind of armor of incredible glamour.”

“I would say that the only thing that is similar is Oscar,” she adds. “But nothing else really competes.”

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Source: HIS Education