It’s an exciting time for Helen Mirren. Not only has she scooped top awards for her Prime Suspect series, but now she’s been nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in The Madness Of King George. Having recently completed filming on Prime Suspect IV, Helen is remarkably cool about her achievements. “Success makes me so much more nervous than failure, because it usually means you get identified with just one role,” she says. “I always say that the two most dangerous things in an actor’s life are success and failure. Failure is dangerous because it makes you insecure and unbalanced. But success is just as bad, because you can be trapped by it very quickly.”

U.S. audiences have been lapping up Helen’s performance in The Madness Of King George. Helen plays the long-suffering Queen Charlotte and the film’s star Nigel Hawthorne, who plays the title role, is nominated for an Oscar as Best Actor. Helen’s Oscar nomination means she is now “establishment”, but she says: “I’ve always been terribly respected in Hollywood. British actresses do tend to be. But I’m not so sure I like respect too much. It can be a bit counter-productive. I think I’d like to excite people rather than have them respect me.”

Helen loved working on the epic costume drama, filmed in England last year. “A lot of my friends were in it and it was wonderful to do a period film for a change and put on lots of diamonds, big wigs and big dresses. It was fabulous,” she says. “It gave me appetite to wear more diamonds in life in general! “The females in my family, who come from, basically, a working class background, have an incredible craving for diamonds. But none of us have had any luck in meeting the kind of men, or living with the kind of men, who buy diamonds. So we save up and buy our own.”

In the film, Helen does not ignite her husband’s ardor, but she is about to embark on an on-screen love affair in Prime Suspect IV. “I wanted a hot, steamy scene but they wouldn’t let me have it,” she complains. An actress not adverse to taking her clothes off on screen, Helen says the producers wanted a more meaningful relationship for their heroine. As the newly promoted Detective-Superintendent Jane Tennison, she meets a handsome criminal psychologist, played by Stuart Wilson. “Because it is a real relationship we explore the problems that there can be between two powerful professional people who love each other.” Helen says. It is not her first screen affair. In Prime Suspect II she was seduced, but the screen fling didn’t last. In the last series, her character made the agonising decision to have an abortion, but Helen says in the next series, she will finally find some sort of happiness.

Helen admits that this may not be her swansong as Jane Tennison, despite reports she wants to leave. “I can’t say whether it’s true or not. We don’t know if it will even be possible to do any more due to scheduling. But I would imagine the producers wanting more. It’s always difficult when you’ve just finished three months of very pressurised filming. It’s quite hard to contemplate the thought of another three months. But she’s a wonderful character and she has probably got further to go.”

Still strikingly attractive at 48, Helen says she has no worries that work could dry up if she decides not to do another series. “People say there are limited roles for mature women’, but what does that word ‘mature’ mean? I’m a completely infantile woman, I’m not mature at all!” she says. Helen is a feminist and would like to see more women in politics. “I’m very sceptical about the world of politics. On the one hand, it seems to be the most important thing in our society, but I could never become a politician. You have to lie too much, and I’m a terrible liar,” she says. Helen readily admits that she lives in Hollywood purely to be near her long-term lover, film director Taylor Hackford. Helen met Taylor on the set of the movie White Nights, but they have never married. Last year Helen spent 90 per cent of her time in the UK.

“That is the most difficult element in my life.” she says. “To have my life and my work thousands of miles apart is tough. I mind it a lot. It would be much nicer to have someone to come home to, but that’s the reality of my job. I live with it and make it work.” Helen has a home in Los Angeles and owns a small flat in London. Refreshingly, she says, she is not always as sure of herself as she seems. “There are many situations when I feel totally inadequate. I’m often on the verge of complete panic, brought on by seemingly simple things like going for at meeting about a film, or meeting a cast for the first time,” she says. “But it’s very different when it’s another character, not me, up on screen. Then I’m just doing a job.”