The 68-year-old actress opened up to Oprah Winfrey in the August issue of O Magazine and revealed she had a case of “queenitis” when she met the monarch two years after the film’s release.
“I was terrified,” Mirren said. “There are certain people who can deal with meeting the queen. But the vast majority of us get queenitis. You just – you cannot think of anything to say.”
Mirren also spoke to the talk show queen about meeting her husband in her late 30s and waiting 13 years to tie the knot.
“I used to say to Taylor, ‘I wish we’d met earlier on. We’ve missed so much time together.’ And he’d say, ‘We’d never be together now if we met earlier,’ ” she says in the interview. “And I think he’s actually right because we were both on a trajectory of work and ambition and, of course, to a certain extent, wanting to resolve ourselves as ourselves.”