Dame Helen Mirren won't watch her own scenes back.

Dame Helen Mirren

Dame Helen Mirren

The 73-year-old actress feels "paralysed" if she catches a glimpse of her work in camera in the middle of a movie shoot and she'd rather feel "free".

She told Britain's Grazia magazine: "I don't like to look at myself while working.

"I don't watch them back. If I look, it sort of paralyses me and I want to be free and relaxed."

Helen recently admitted she has a "secret ambition" to be a villain in a James Bond movie.

She said: "[Woman] get to play much cooler villains these days. But I've always had a secret ambition to play a villain in a James Bond movie."

Asked whether she might try to further her case for a role in a Bond film, she added: "I'm not very proactive in that way. James Bond is such a well-oiled machine. It's hard to put a spoke in that wheel."

Helen was recently seen playing Mother Ginger in 'The Nutcracker and the Four Realms', which also features Keira Knightley and Morgan Freeman.

And the veteran star has admitted to relishing the on-set experience of working on the fantasy film.

She shared: "The costumes! My God! Every costume is a complete work of art.

"I'm eternally fascinated and impressed by the artisanal craftsmen behind the camera. You walk into the studio and you're in a forest. It smells like a forest. It looks like a forest. It's extraordinary. I was just dying to take photographs. But Disney is very, very secretive, and you can't take photographs."


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