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Helen Mirren Receives Career Achievement Honor

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Helen Mirren receives the Career Achievement Honor at AARP’s 17th Annual Movies For Grownups Awards. Mirren, an Academy ®, Golden Globe®, Emmy®, Tony®, BAFTA® & Olivier® Award-winning actress accepted Movies for Grownups’® highest honor on Monday, Feb. 5, 2018, at the Beverly Wilshire, Beverly Hills. Available to viewers for the first time ever, Great Performances presents the broadcast premiere of the Movies for Grownups Awards® with AARP the Magazine on Friday, February 23 at 9 p.m. on PBS, pbs.org/gperf and PBS apps.
“I am greatly honoured by this award. I consider film to be a high art form, that informs, inspires, and entertains,” said Helen Mirren. “It is the ultimate mirror up to nature. I am very grateful for the opportunity to be a part of that culture, both as performer and audience.”
TRANSCRIPT

HELEN MIRREN: Here I want to quote the words of a very wise woman called Margaret Heffernan.

And this is her quote: 'Life has always been uncertain and every generation has imagined that the future would be like the past - repeating itself or like the present, staying the same. But it's neither - it is unknown.

Nothing, nothing lasts forever history doesn't really repeat itself.

Life keeps surprising us. That's what makes it so rich with possibility.

If, if it were all truly known, planned, and determined, it just it wouldn't be worth living just a giant to-do list waiting to be crossed off.

But when something is unknown, why then anything can happen.

Nothing is written, everything is up for grabs.'

And so that is how the life I have lived up to this moment has unfolded. With love, with work, with fun, with anger with despair, with sadness, and with much laughter. So I thank all the colleagues I've ever worked with all the wonderful writers, the directors. I thank my family my husband Taylor, my sister Kate, who's here today my nephew Simon, my representatives Fred and Stan, and of course I thank my lucky stars as I grab this award. Thank you very much.

[Clapping] you

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