Helen Mirren Quotes

I wanted to be a classical actress. I plodded along. I went to junior college in San Francisco, I was in a Repertory Company. My hero was Eva Le Gallienne, who was a great theater actress at the turn of the century who created her own company, and she wrote these hilarious autobiographies at the time.

I had been nine years in the theatre and hadn't had massive success. My only thing was I wanted to be an actor and I didn't care when, where, or how much for.

I then moved to LA when I was 16... but before that I had done a play on Broadway.

I wasn't sure what it would take to make it in the theater, but despite the struggle, that was all I ever really wanted.

I was always ambitious. I always wanted to be more than I was....I always wanted to be a movie actor.

I labor, I spend, I strive, I design, I love, I cling, I uphold, I give way, I envy, I long, I scorn, I die, I hide, I want. Faster, much faster than any man could make the tally.

Even after I got some recognition and success, I still had to work hard and prove myself.

He who wants to succeed should learn how to fight, to strive and to suffer. You can acquire a lot in life, if you are prepared to give up a lot to get it.

A strenuous soul hates cheap success.

The gent who wakes up and finds himself a success hasn't been asleep.

I have always believed that if you want to achieve anything special in life you have to work, work, and then work some more.

Young people need plenty of difficulties to achieve something.... If you receive a little money for this, a little money for that, everything becomes mediocre, and collapses ignominiously.

Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. Like the first monkey shot into space.

Somebody told me that if you wake up every day and do stuff that's easy, then you're doing the wrong thing. If you wake up every day and do stuff that's really hard and you manage to get through to people, then you're doing the right thing. They might have just fooled me by telling me that, but it worked. I think that's my philosophy.

I want to keel over on stage playing King Lear at age 99 or something like that.

I've had a very full career in the theater, on stage, in films and on television.

Everything I did growing up was with that as the real goal - doing Broadway; doing theatre. That was always the big thrill for me.

If we think it takes a lot of effort and hard work to get what we want, then our life is going to be about struggle.

I want the good life, but I don't want an easy ride. What I want is to work for it, feel the blood and sweat on my fingertips.

When you're really passionate, you're going to grab hold of every rope you see, and wrap them around your arms and legs to claw your way out. And that's the way I've felt in my life.

No path of flowers leads to glory.

Life is a fight for territory and once you stop fighting for what you want, what you don't want will automatically take over.

Acting is everything to me; it's what I've always wanted to do. I may never have this chance to do what I'm doing right now. So I guess right now I'm going to do as much as I can with it.

My main goal, starting out as a young actor, was to carry the reins that Pac left off and to reach the depths as an actor that I know he would have reached had he still been here with us.