Veteran British actress Helen Mirren has revealed she always wanted to be a French actress.
The 69-year-old star, who stars with Indian veteran actor Om Puri in 'The Hundred-Foot Journey', said her role of a restaurant boss in the South of France in the film is the one she most relates to because she grew up wanting to act in French cinema, reported Hello magazine.
"What I loved about ('The Hundred-Foot Journey'), I could pretend I was a French actress for the first time in my life," she said.
"When I was growing up in my teens, the French just seemed to be the coolest, most chic people on the planet and I desperately wanted to be French. I got myself a French boyfriend and that was the closest I could get to it," she added.
The 'Queen' star also acted in a French movie. "I did a film in France and I loved being there. I rented a little garret and it was literally one room on the top of a house on the Left Bank and it was very bohemian.
"I thought I would literally just go to Paris and just sit there until I became a French actress," Mirren said.
Mirren said she should not settle in France because she kept getting work in England. "I kept getting work in England, which I had to take because I had to pay for the garret in France and then it just never worked out," the actress said.
