Helen Mirren has revealed that she does not believe Shakespeare should be taught in schools, The Independent reports.
She recently chatted with Royal Shakespeare Company's artistic director Gregory Doran over Zoom, stating, "I don't think Shakespeare should be taught in schools. All young people's experience of Shakespeare should be live theatre."
Mirren believes that a classroom setting may pose a challenge when trying to make the "sometimes archaic language alive and accessible." She said that "droning through" Shakespeare at the age of 11 or 12 risks making children dislike the work forever.
Instead, she suggests that children's first experiences with Shakespeare should be watching, rather than reading.
Read more on The Independent.
Helen Mirren has won international recognition for her work on stage, screen and television. For her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen in 2006, she received an Academy Award, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award, and BAFTA Award for Best Actress. She was also named Best Actress by virtually every critics organization from Los Angeles to London. In 2014 she was honored with the BAFTA Fellowship for her outstanding career in film. On television she played the title role in Elizabeth I for which she won Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Awards.
Mirren began her career in the role of Cleopatra at the National Youth Theatre. She then joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she starred in such productions as Troilus and Cressida and Macbeth. In 1972, she joined renowned director Peter Brooks Theatre Company and toured the world. Since then her theatre work has spanned numerous productions in the West End, the Fringe, the RSC,
The National Theatre and Broadway, including A Month in the Country, for which she received a Tony nomination, and The Dance of Death opposite
Ian McKellen. Subsequent productions include Orpheus Descending at
The Donmar Warehouse and Mourning Becomes Electra at the National, for which she received an Olivier Best Actress Award nomination. She returned to the National in 2009 in the title role of Racine Phedre directed by
Nicholas Hytner. This made history when it became the first theatre production to be filmed for "NTLive" and was seen in cinemas throughout the world. In her most recent performance in 2013 in London's West End, she reprised her role of Queen Elizabeth II in
Peter Morgan's The Audience, directed by
Stephen Daldry, for which she won an Olivier Award for Best Actress. She reprised the role on Broadway for which she received the 2015 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.
In 2013 she starred alongside
Anthony Hopkins in the film Hitchcock, and with
Al Pacino in HBO's "
Phil Spector," for which she won a SAG Award for her performance. On television she earned an Emmy and three BAFTAs for playing Jane Tennison in the multi award-winning series "Prime Suspect." Her other television includes "Losing Chase," for which she won a Golden Globe Award, "The Passion of
Ayn Rand," for which she won a Emmy Award, "Door to Door" and "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone."
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