Helen Mirren reveals 'secret' to 24-year marriage to husband Taylor Hackford

28 February 2022, 12:30

Helen Mirren discusses 'The Duke' with Smooth's Angie Greaves

Helen Mirren thinks her marriage to film director husband Taylor Hackford has gone the distance because they spend time apart.

Dame Helen Mirren has opened up about spending quality time with her husband Taylor Hackford for the first time in 30 years.

The 76-year-old tied the knot with Taylor, 77, back in 1997, with the pair first dating ten years before that in 1986.

And while they have been together for more than three decades, Helen has said lockdown gave her the opportunity to actually sit down at the dinner table with her husband.

Speaking on The Graham Norton Show, Helen said: "For the first time in 30 odd years of marriage we sat at the table opposite each other and had dinner together every night for six months.

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"It was fantastic, brilliant."

Helen met film director Taylor just after her breakthrough part in the 1980’s film The Long Good Friday, and he later auditioned her for the movie White Nights.

But with both stars leading very successful jobs in the film industry, they have travelled the world and spent a lot of time in different countries.

"My theory has always been that this is why we're still together: because we've spent so much time apart, we're always pleased to see each other," the actress previously told You magazine:

Speaking on the Today show back in 2016, the actress also said that she believes finding Taylor ‘later in life’ has helped their relationship.

After calling him ‘the love of her life’, she explained: “The great thing about finding a partnership later on [in life] is that you recognise it as such.

“You recognise the partnership level of this relationship as much as the love and the lust and all the rest of it.”

After her breakthrough film role in The Long Good Friday, Helen has had some huge parts in films such as Teaching Mrs. Tingle, Calendar Girls, Hitchcock, Fast & Furious and Hobbs & Shaw.

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Helen also appeared as Queen Elizabeth II, which won her an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and a SAG Award.

In the Queen's 2003 Birthday Honours, the acting icon was appointed a Dame (DBE) for services to drama.

Her latest project is the new film The Duke, where she portrays Dorothy Bunton.

The comedy-drama, which is set in 1961, follows 60-year-old taxi driver Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent), who steals Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London.