She has had a long and illustrious career, but while Helen Mirren has been in plenty of films, there is still one situation that she won’t ever feel completely comfortable with: filming intimate scenes.

The 74-year-old recently sat-down with Daily Mail to touch on many different aspects of her career, including not being all for romantic situations on-screen — mainly because she has never seen herself as sexy. “I know people mean it as a compliment, but I find it very annoying,” the Oscar-winner told the outlet. “I am not beautiful, that’s just a fact. And I have always been uncomfortable with the tag of ‘sexy.’”

“I spent most of my career feeling incredibly embarrassed and awkward about every intimate romantic scene I had to do,” The Queen star continued. “I would push myself to do them because acting is about challenging yourself, liberating yourself and all I ever wanted was to be a good actor. But sexy? No. Beautiful? No. And then there’s the element of being objectified and patronized thrown in. All it’s ever made me feel is awkward.”

Helen Mirren
James Veysey/Shutterstock

While she does not want to be described as “sexy,” the actress would like to be seen in a certain way: as “cool.” “That’s not true either, but it would be nice. I would like to be cool,” Helen said.

The Good Liar costar is no stranger to being quite open about how she feels about her looks — she once revealed that she is completely fine with aging. “I don’t often wish that I’m younger because I think that it’s pretty cool to be older,” she explained during a speech at the Women in Film pre-Oscar party. “What I love the most about being older is that lovely I don’t give a f–kness kind of thing.”

“All you young things don’t be afraid of getting older because it’s f–king great, but tonight looking at this audience, I do wish I was about 40 years younger,” she added.

Everyone will always love Helen!