London: Veteran British actress Helen Mirren has revealed she always wanted to be a French actress.
The 69-year-old star, who stars with Indian veteran actor Om Puri in `The Hundred-Foot Journey`, said her role of a restaurant boss in the South of France in the film is the one she most relates to because she grew up wanting to act in French cinema, reported a magazine.
"What I loved about (`The Hundred-Foot Journey`), I could pretend I was a French actress for the first time in my life," she said.
"When I was growing up in my teens, the French just seemed to be the coolest, most chic people on the planet and I desperately wanted to be French. I got myself a French boyfriend and that was the closest I could get to it," she added.
The `Queen` star also acted in a French movie. "I did a film in France and I loved being there. I rented a little garret and it was literally one room on the top of a house on the Left Bank and it was very bohemian.
"I thought I would literally just go to Paris and just sit there until I became a French actress," Mirren said.
Mirren said she should not settle in France because she kept getting work in England. "I kept getting work in England, which I had to take because I had to pay for the garret in France and then it just never worked out," the actress said.
