Dame Helen Mirren has one major rule to keep looking youthful ahead of 80th birthday

Dame Helen Mirren has revealed her best tip for youngsters to stay looking young - don’t smoke and try everything.

The acclaimed actress will turn 80 next month but looks much younger than her advancing years. Asked for advice she said: “Don’t smoke, that’s rule number one and do everything but don't do too much of anything. That's a great way of looking at things, because it's important to take care of your health, but you also don't want to live like a nun.”

Dame Helen, who won an Oscar for Elizabeth II one of a number of royals she has played, says she will never get used to being a star and has a lack of ego. She explained: “It always surprises me when someone comes up to me in a supermarket or an airport and says that they think I'm great, but it's lovely. This sort of thing is fun. It's fabulous. It's fantastic. It doesn't feel right to say that I'm proud of being a role model to people, but it's a great feeling.”

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Dame Helen also says she has always been a make up fan and still enjoys spending hours putting it on as one of life’s pleasures.

Speaking to Grazia magazine, as part of of her role as a L’Oreal ambassador, she said: “My idea of a treat is going into a drug store and buying myself another lip liner. I sit at my little desk at home and can spend hours putting my makeup on. It's something I've always loved to do.

“It's not that I don't like trying new products. The innovation is amazing, but it's heartbreaking when you hit on a foundational mascara that you love, the golden chalice, only to find that a few years later that has been discontinued.”

She takes her role so seriously as an ambassador that she even took a box of their hair dye home with her to try out herself before promoting it.

Confirming the rumour she said: “That’s the point of the whole thing, isn’t it? I wanted to do it myself, to genuinely be Able to tell people it’s a great product, which it is."

Dame Helen also praised a new L’Oreal initiative promoting women in the film industry.

Looking back over her career, which began on stage at The Old Vic playing Cleopatra aged 20, she said: “When I arrived on the scene as an actress, I'd step onto set and there would be 150 men and three women, almost exclusively, working in the costume and hair and makeup departments.

"Now, when I walk onto a film set, maybe a quarter of the people there are women, and I'm talking about women directors, cinematographers, women in the sound department, in the electrical department. It's moving.

We will next see Dame Helen on screen in Netflix ’s film version of the Richard Osman book The Thursday Murder Club, where she is playing retirement village sleuth Elizabeth Best. It is released on August 28.

* The full interview is in the latest edition of Grazia Magazine, out now.

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