Hollywood star Helen Mirren is sad that Kurt Cobain didn't live to see the invention of satellite navigation

Helen Mirren wearing a big hat, taking a photo, and Kurt Cobain looking pensive
Helen Mirren (left) and Kurt Cobain (Image credit: Helen Mirren: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images | Kurt Cobain: Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images)

Hollywood legend Dame Helen Mirren has aged better than many, so it's only natural that she should have some thoughts on the aging process. What no one expects is for her to invoke the name of late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain in the process. But she has.

In the latest edition of Brave New World, the podcast hosted by Evgeny Lebedev, Russian businessman and owner of UK newspaper The Evening Standard, Mirren talks about her own Russian heritage, reflects on spirituality, and talks about advances in technology.

Asked about staying youthful, Mirren insists that getting older is merely the result of great good fortune, while others are "lost along the way."

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“I always say it’s so sad that Kurt Cobain died when he did because he never saw GPS!" says Mirren. "And GPS is the most wonderful thing! To watch my little blue spot walking down the street, I just find it completely magical and unbelievable.

Mirren goes on to express her gratitude for growing up in a world where technology didn't dominate our lives as it does today.

“From this point on, the human world will only know technology unless there’s some unbelievably catastrophic event and only a few people left on the planet,” she says. “And everything, everything has been destroyed from this point on. For the rest of humanity, however long humanity survives, it will be a world of technology.

"I’m so grateful that I was of a generation that knew the world before technology. And you know we will die out eventually.”

The full episode is embedded below.

Fraser Lewry
Online Editor, Classic Rock

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 39 years in music industry, online for 26. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.

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