Helen Mirren surprised her peers at The Hollywood Reporter’s drama actress roundtable with a bold declaration: “None of us are beauties.” The Oscar winner, who’s up for Emmy consideration for her role in MobLand, sat alongside fellow actors Kathy Bates, Parker Posey, Niecy Nash-Betts, Cristin Milioti, and Keri Russell for a candid conversation about aging in Hollywood, beauty standards, and the career hurdles they've faced.
The moment came as the group discussed the pressure to conform to traditional standards of attractiveness. Mirren, recalling her early years in the business, shared, “Someone once told me I’d never get work without a nose job. But I didn’t want to be a pretty actress. I chose not to be.” Her statement prompted an even more unexpected remark: “Looking at our faces around this table, none of us are beautiful.”
Bates, ever quick-witted, countered: “Oh, get out of town! I feel more beautiful than I ever have.” But Mirren stuck to her point, clarifying that what they each have are “really different, very interesting faces” — a quality, she suggested, that speaks to depth and uniqueness over surface-level beauty.
The conversation wasn’t limited to physical appearance. Bates opened up about the advice she received during her battle with ovarian cancer. Told by an agent to stay quiet about her diagnosis in 2003 to avoid being typecast, Bates now believes sharing her story could have helped others. “Maybe if I had come out then, it would’ve made a difference,” she reflected.
The roundtable also revisited Bates’ earlier struggles breaking into leading roles. She recently revealed in Vanity Fair that director Garry Marshall passed her over for 1991’s Frankie and Johnny, despite her originating the role on stage. “He couldn’t see me as a romantic lead. The idea of me kissing a man onscreen just wasn’t believable to him,” she said.
Despite decades of change in the industry, the women at the table agreed that old standards still linger — though, as their careers prove, defying those standards can be a strength. Whether in prestige television or Oscar-winning films, their “interesting faces” continue to tell some of the most powerful stories on screen.
Source: Entertainment Weekly