Actress Helen Mirren has played countless royals — Cleopatra, Queen Charlotte, Queen Elizabeth I and II.
It's no coincidence. Aristocracy is in the blood, she tells Renee Montagne. Even the working class women in her family were "queenly."
Her new memoir, In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures, outlines her aristocratic beginnings, from a time before the Mirren family was known as such, until she found a very special "religion" — the theater.
No matter how perfectly she may play a queen, however, she admits that she still gets intimidated when she gets a script and sees the "enormous number of lines" she has to learn.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.