Months after opening up about the wild encounter during a podcast chat with Marc Maron, 'The Queen' actress gets into the details during the Screen Actors Guild Awards telecast.
- April 6, 2021
AceShowbiz - Dame Helen Mirren's COVID lockdown highlight was an experience with a black bear near her retreat in Nevada.
The British actress opened up about her wild encounter during a podcast chat with Marc Maron last summer (2020), and she mentioned it again during the Screen Actors Guild Awards telecast on Sunday, April 4, when she was asked for her lockdown highlights.
"The Queen" star explained, "I did have a bit of a meeting with a bear. I was so excited to see a bear, but then, of course, you can't allow bears to get too familiar with human beings because they are wild animals. So I chased him away."
"I shooed the bear away. I told him he was a naughty bear. He was a young bear so I just said, 'No, naughty bear, go on, go on, off you go!' You're supposed to make yourself as big as possible and say, 'Bad bear! Bad bear!' [But] because it was not a big bear - it was a smaller bear - I just said, 'You naughty bear, go on. Go away!' "
The Oscar winner and her husband had just moved into a new house in Lake Tahoe when the coronavirus lockdown began in March 2020.
"We're not right on the lake but I can see it... It's really pretty," she told Maron last year. "Incredible air and just endless entertainment by wildlife - chipmunks, and golden-mantles [squirrel].... and about 10 different kinds of birds."
Mirren made an appearance at the 27th SAG Awards as a presenter on the pre-taped virtual show. For the special night, she presented two show-stopping looks. She first wore a form-fitting red gown with puffy hot pink sleeves by Badgley Mischka, before putting in a sequin-covered, high-neck red gown by Michael Kors.
