By stufflovely
It wasn’t her all-time favorite red-carpet look, though. That goes back 15 years to the 2006 Venice Film Festival. “The night that The Queen screened at Venice was a very big moment because it was the moment that launched the film into the public arena,” she recalls. “And I had a really lovely, sort-of-silver sequined dress — and it was so not like my look as the Queen. I loved that look.”
Sequins and pink hair can go a long way in making Mirren feel beautiful — or as she prefers to put it, like she has “swagger” — but what ultimately makes her feel her most glamorous during the fanciest of film-industry events is a completely unexpected accessory: comfort.
“Somehow, being comfortable in what you’re wearing gives you an ease and the relaxation that transforms your look,” Mirren says. “You can have everything perfectly done, but if you’re self-conscious about things showing, or it doesn’t quite fit, you’re sort of stiff. Weirdly, comfort is very, very important.”
That comfort comes through as confidence when Mirren is in front of the camera, which is what has made her a beauty icon to so many. But even Mirren herself has beauty role models, including Kate Winslet, who recently joined Mirren among the L’Oréal Paris ambassador ranks.
“Kate is a very beautiful woman, undoubtedly, of course. But she’s beautiful in a way that she’s always allowed it to be herself — her natural self,” Mirren says of her Collateral Beauty costar. “Even when she’s very obviously, beautifully dressed up with hair and makeup, there’s something always very natural about her, and that comes from her personality. She’s a really great woman.”
As they say, it takes one to know one.
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