Helen Mirren encourages everyone to marry later in life
Helen Mirren believes marrying later in life “is a very good idea”, revealing in September that she is grateful she waited until she was 52 before tying the knot.
The 70-year-old actress said, “I think marrying late is a very good idea – it worked out for me. In general, I'd say it's not a great idea to marry young. And it's a really terrible idea to get married for the frock.”
Mirren, who married director Taylor Hackford in 1997 after 11 years of dating, said too many young people are rushing down the aisle.
“Girls nowadays have a princess complex – they’re longing to have the gorgeous dress, be the centre of attention and live the dream for 24 hours,” she told the Daily Mail’s You Magazine.
Mirren has previously spoken about her first meeting with Hackford on the set of White Nights in 1985, saying, “We have the advantage of coming upon each other later in life.”
She believes that if they had met earlier, the relationship may not have last.
“I said when we got together, ‘Oh, I can’t believe it. Why didn’t we get together when we were in our 20s? We missed all that time,’” she revealed.
“He said, ‘If we got together in our 20s we wouldn’t be together now.’ And he was absolutely right.”
The Oscar-winner has also announced that for her sex improves with age. She revealed that sex in her youth was “paranoid and empty” whereas in the past couple of decades sex has become “great, just wonderful.”
Mirren comments are a good reminder that despite all of society’s messages to the contrary, marriage and sex aren’t in the domain of the young, and perhaps the older you get, the better those two things may be. And if it’s coming from Dame Helen Mirren, we’re inclined to agree.