Helen Mirren has no time for sexist comments, as proven by a recently unearthed video from a 1975 interview.
Mirren appeared on the British talk show Parkinson, in which host Michael Parkinson is shown questioning Mirren, then 30, about her body.
Following an introduction in which Parkinson quotes a number of reviewers’ overtly sexual comments about Mirren, the actress walked onto the stage and referenced a phrase Parkinson used: “That was sluttishly erotic for you,” she said.
The most tense moment of the interview comes when Parkinson asked if Mirren felt her body inhibits her from becoming a “serious actress.”
“Because serious actresses can’t have big bosoms, is that what you mean?” Mirren fired back. “What a crummy performance if people are obsessed with the size of your bosom or anything else.”
Mirren was appearing on the show to promote her role as Lady MacBeth in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of MacBeth. At the time, Mirren was a rising star in the stage world, and Parkinson asked about the men in that realm who interested her (which apparently meant men wearing leather jackets).
“I strongly dislike men who look another way, like men in very nicely cut suits,” Mirren responded while looking at the suit-wearing Parkinson.
Before the interview ended, Mirren got in another dig at the host after he asked her about nude scenes.
“It’s a male chauvinist thing… you’ve heard that phrase before, I’m sure,” she said.
Check out the first half of the interview above, and the second half below.
This article originally appeared on Entertainment Weekly.
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