Last summer, Helen Mirren—cinema’s septuagenarian queen of coolness and female-empowerment—was asked what she thought of Kim Kardashian West—empress of the nearby reality TV kingdom. Mirren, literal dame that she is, offered a perfectly polite response (“I’m not into the Kardashians. It’s a phenomenon I just don’t find interesting.”) with a side of cheeky optimism, thanking them for making curvier women in vogue (“but—and this is the big word: B-U-T-T—it’s wonderful that you’re allowed to have a butt nowadays”).
This week, Mirren was invited to take part in a Cannes Lions lecture for L’Oreal Paris (for which she is a spokeswoman) about finding self-worth. And when asked point blank why she thinks that young people are struggling more than ever with self-confidence, the revered Oscar and Tony-winning actress name-checked Kardashian West as part of her hypothesis.
“I’m sure it has a lot to do with social media, and rise of online bullying and people expressing their inadequacies online,” Mirren told The Telegraph. “Reality TV and the promotion of glamor and beauty expressed by the likes of the Kardashians is likely to have played a part too. They create the sense that you have to have the perfect life with the perfect handbag et cetera, and if you don’t then you feel bad.”
So how would Mirren—who has gone stripper-heeled toe-to-toe with grotesquely sexist interviewers (on live TV no less) and Hollywood’s buffest action stars—advise young people on surviving this Kardashian era?
“A lot of people feel alone at this time, but the most important element is understanding that you’re not alone,” Mirren said. “Others are going through the same thing as you. There isn’t a tip or piece of advice that works for all. I think ‘fake it’ is a good one, but going to the gym isn’t bad either. Exercising is a very good way of controlling your mind. Yoga is all about meditative practices.”
Onstage, Mirren got personal, remembering how, as a teenager, one of her friends, a particularly intelligent boy with a bad complexion and alcoholic father, killed himself. Mirren said she frequently thinks of her friend as an example of those “unbelievably difficult years between 17 and 25.” Self-doubt, “when it’s in young people, can be so terribly debilitating.”
“It’s funny that in this very sophisticated world we live in, so full of literal beauty and beautiful things and communication and education and everything, the whole issue of self-doubt seems to be more extreme than it ever was,” Mirren continued, referencing the effect social media has.
“All of these people at different times are going to suffer great self-doubt and insecurity,” Mirren said. “The other thing that I learned early on, when you are so young and up your own bum about yourself, is learning, ‘No, the world is not all about you and your insecurity and your lack of self worth. Actually look outside of yourself and be less egotistical. Because the lack of confidence can actually become a sort of self-obsession. Be outward, and give yourself to other people, rather than be constantly thinking about yourself.”
When the moderator replied that she could not imagine the immensely talented and beautiful Helen Mirren suffering from self-doubt, the Oscar winner replied, “Well, I am a good actress. That is what it is all about, really. . .Just act your way through it.”
Kardashian West was not the only reality-TV star that Mirren took a snipe at during the seminar. Asked about her tattoo—two interlocking V’s on her hand—Mirren explained that the symbol signifies that “people can be as completely different to you as you could possibly imagine, but still have the same value to you. . .It means you are equal to me, it doesn’t matter how different you are to me.”
“Sometimes it is quite different for me to grasp, especially for me personally when you are dealing with people who elected Donald Trump,” Mirren said. “But I have to recognize their need and their fear and their pain and why they went into that direction. I have to give them equal value to what I represent.”
