Dame Helen Mirren, who played Queen Elizabeth mourns her death
Dame Helen Mirren paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth II after news of Her Majesty’s death was announced.
“I’m mourning along with the rest of my country, the passing of a great Queen. I’m proud to call myself of the Elizabethan age. If there was a definition of nobility, Elizabeth Windsor embodied it,” Mirren told The Post in a statement Thursday.
Mirren, 77, shared a photo of the queen as a young woman just moments after the news broke.
“I am proud to be an Elizabethan. We mourn a woman, who, with or without the crown, was the epitome of nobility,” she wrote on Instagram.
The British actress famously portrayed the monarch in the 2006 film “The Queen,” which follows the royal in the time around the death of Princess Diana.
Her iconic performance won her an Oscar and BAFTA and set the bar for the many portrayals of Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning monarch in British history.
Other actresses who have played Elizabeth on screen, including Olivia Colman, Claire Foy and Imelda Staunton, who is set to portray her on “The Crown,” have yet to comment.
Mirren acknowledged her respect for the Queen during her Oscar acceptance speech, saying, “Now, you know, for 50 years and more, Elizabeth Windsor has maintained her dignity, her sense of duty and her hairstyle. She’s had her feet planted firmly on the ground, her hat on her head, her handbag on her arm and she’s weathered many, many storms.”
“I salute her courage and her consistency. And I thank her, because if it wasn’t for her I most, most certainly would not be here,” she added.
Even before her iconic performance, Mirren was known as a friend of the Crown and was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2003.
“Becoming a dame was a whole different thing. It was to do with my family, with my mum and dad, and the world I grew up in. And they were both dead by the time … but I accepted it for my parents,” she said at the time.
The Dame met the Queen on several occasions, even being chosen for a small private tea with the Royals. “They were lovely, they were utterly gracious,” she noted.
The royal family announced she died on Thursday at Balmoral Castle, her beloved summer residence in Scotland, where members of the royal family had rushed to her side after her health took a turn for the worse.
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