Helen Mirren: 'I've Never Felt the Need for a Child'

Oscar winning actress Helen Mirren, 68, covers AARP's latest issue, in which she candidly discusses never having children.

"I never felt the need for a child and never felt the loss of it," she says, reflecting on her successful career. "I'd always put my work before anything."

In fact, Mirren, who was in a live-in relationship with Liam Neeson in the '80s, used to call marriage a "voluntary imprisonment." Though she did eventually marry director Taylor Hackford (Ray, La Bamba) in 1997 after a twelve-year relationship, when she was 53 years old.

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"I used to say to Taylor, 'Oh, why didn't we meet earlier?' But it's a really good thing, because we probably wouldn't be together now,” she says. "I couldn't have dealt with him earlier on. He would have been much too difficult. He was quite difficult as it was, but I got through that."

As for her thoughts on modern technology like social media, it’s clear that Mirren isn't a fan.

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"It reminds me of a stinky old pub. In the corner would be this slightly disgusting old man who sits there all day, every day. If you went up and talked to him, you'd get the kind of grumpy, horrible, moldy, old meaningless crap that you read on Twitter," she says.