An old interview from 1975 recently resurfaced showing the actress shutting down sexist interviewer Michael Parkinson who kept talking about her boobs.
- August 24, 2016
AceShowbiz -
Here's another reason to adore Dame Helen Mirren. An old interview from 1975 recently resurfaced and showed then-30-year-old actress perfectly shutting down a sexist interviewer who kept talking about her physical appearance.
When the interview was filmed more than four decades ago, Mirren was already an accomplished stage actress in the U.K., a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and was about to play the part of Lady Macbeth. But instead of discussing her career, host Michael Parkinson seemed to be more interested in talking about her boobs.
"You are, in quotes, a serious actress," Parkinson said to Mirren in the interview. "In quotes?" the actress, looking dumbfounded, asked. "What do you mean in quotes? How dare you?"
"Do you find it to be fact that, what could be best described as your equipment hinders you in that pursuit?" he then explained. "I'd like you to explain what you mean by my equipment in greater detail," she said before he added, "Your physical attributes."
"You mean my fingers?" Mirren asked. After Parkinson finally told her that he was referring to her "figure," she said, "Because serious actresses can't have big bosoms, is that what you mean?" "I think it might detract from the performance, if you know what I mean," Parkinson argued.
But Mirren had to disagree with him. "I can't say that would necessarily be true. I mean, what a crummy performance is 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," she told him.
The sexist interview became one of the unforgettable experiences for Mirren. Back in 2011, she slammed Parkinson in a chat with The Telegraph. "That's the first talk show I'd ever done," she recalled. "I was terrified. I watched it and I actually thought, bloody hell! I did really well. I was so young and inexperienced. And he was such a f**king sexist old fart. He was. He denies it to this day that it was sexist, but of course he was."
