Dame Mirren: Financial independence is freedom

Dame Helen Mirren believes financial independence “gives you freedom”.

The 69-year-old Academy Award-winning actress has embraced feminism for decades.

And she thinks it’s important for young women to make money on their own.

“[It] gives you freedom,” Helen noted while speaking at the 2015 Women in the World Summit with Tina Brown in New York City, according to UK newspaper The Telegraph. “The most important thing we can teach our daughters is to gain financial independence.”

The thespian is currently starring as Queen Elizabeth II in hit Broadway show The Audience. In the play, the UK’s first female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher makes a fictional appearance and although Helen previously noted she didn’t agree with Thatcher’s politics, the star still considers the politician a great inspiration.

“That’s how incredibly important Margaret Thatcher was,” she said. “She was an incredible role model.

“Imagine a little three-year-old watching the television and saying ‘Who’s that Mummy?’ ‘That’s the prime minister’.

“And into that little three-year-old’s mind came the possibility that she could be prime minister.”

After receiving a round of applause from the crowd, Helen quipped, “So go Hillary,” referencing recent news former United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is running for president in 2016.

Helen has been married to her film director husband Taylor Hackford since 1997, having tied the knot with him when she was 52 years old.

And although Helen “loves being married now”, she admits this wasn’t always the case.

“[I] didn’t like the idea of marriage, didn’t feel the need to be married,” she noted of her thoughts on marriage as a younger women.