Watch a Young Helen Mirren Decimate a Sexist Interviewer in 1975
You didn't need a recently revived interview in which Helen Mirren stands up to a sexist troll to prove that Mirren has been a goddess for decades. You knew that already! Still, the evidence is a nice reminder.
Back in 1975, Michael Parkinson invited Mirren onto his popular British talk show to discuss her budding career success. But while she waited for her cue off screen, Parkinson deemed her a "sex queen" and quoted a critic who assessed her talents as "especially telling in projecting sluttish eroticism." At the time, she was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, which is kinda impressive. Just a little.
"You are, in quotes, 'a serious actress,'" Parkinson said, addressing Mirren once she sits down beside him.
"In quotes? What do you mean in quotes?" she responded. "How dare you?"
"Serious actress," Parkinson said, "as opposed to an unserious actress." Oh.
Parkinson, intent to dig an even deeper hole in which to bury himself, went on:
"Do you find it to be fact that, what could be best described as your 'equipment,' hinders you in that pursuit?"
When Mirren said she'd like for him to explain what he meant by her "equipment," Parkinson suggested that perhaps her "physical attributes" did her a disservice.
"You mean my fingers?" Mirren said. But eventually, Mirren dropped the charade and laid into him. "Because serious actresses can't have big bosoms, is that what you mean?" she wanted to know.
"I think it might detract from the performance," Parkinson said. "If you know what I mean."
Well, no.
"I can't say that would necessarily be true," Mirren said, exhibiting far more grace than she needed to. "I mean, what a crummy performance if people are obsessed with the size of your bosom over anything else. I would hope that the performance and the play and the living relationship between all the people on the stage and all the people in the audience would overcome such ... boring questions, really."
Truly, brava.
Later, Mirren would tell The Telegraph that the episode was the first talk show she'd ever done. She was only 30 at the time.
"I was terrified," she said. "I watched it and I actually thought, Bloody hell! I did really well. I was so young and inexperienced. And he was such a fucking sexist old fart. He was. He denies it to this day that it was sexist, but of course he was."
You heard the woman! Sexist old farts, if you're out there: You're on notice.
