At last night's SAG Awards, national treasure Dame Helen Mirren was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award, recognising her extraordinary career. Introducing her virtually Kate Winslet, who was unable to attend the ceremony, said: 'She’s the opposite of grand. Instead, she’s the actress who wants to roll up her sleeves with the rest of us.' Kate added: 'Your commitment and integrity inspire us all. Women just get better with age.'
After Kate's introduction, Cate Blanchett presented Mirren with the award to an enthusiastic standing ovation. Addressing the audience, Mirren joked: 'Lifetime Achievement, that sounds so grand. I supposed I’m still alive so by that measure, I’m eligible. But honestly, any achievement that I’ve succeeded in is the result of my mantra: be on time and don’t be an ass.'
Previous recipients of the lifetime achievement award include Julie Andrews, Elizabeth Taylor, Morgan Freeman and Robert de Niro. With a total of five SAG wins to her name, Mirren is also an Oscar, BAFTA and Emmy-winner. Despite this, she continued: 'I’m simultaneously enormously proud, and yet I’m driven with the understanding that I absolutely do not deserve this.'
Mirren dedicated her award to the acting community, saying: 'I get really pissed off when I read or hear about actors being maligned as a group. It's so easy, isn't it? That lazy and false assumption of vanity when in my experience, which by now is considerable, the opposite is true. We love and admire each other's work. Together, we laugh, we weep, we worry, we change clothes, we throw up and we suffer diarrhea. Don't you? I mean, I do.'
Mirren concluded her speech by saying: 'You're a magnificent tribe stretching across culture, history and time. This is for the actors.'
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