Helen Mirren for Hillary: ‘Time for the Best Role Model in the White House’

British actress Helen Mirren made her U.S. presidential preference clear while accepting honors at this year’s Variety Power of Women event in Hollywood on Friday, telling attendees that the country will see a “real-life example” of workplace gender equality in November when voters head to the polls to elect Hillary Clinton president.

Mirren — who was honored at the Hollywood trade publication’s annual event alongside Scarlett Johansson, Miley Cyrus, Laverne Cox and Ava DuVernay — said that while Hollywood has played a role in advancing the causes of women around the world, the real battle over gender equality is not in women securing roles in drama films, but rather in securing roles in “real life.”

“We here in Hollywood bear a great responsibility to continue what has been happening in the last few years. You know it’s taken a damn long time to get here, that’s for sure,” Mirren said at Friday’s event at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles, which recognized the philanthropic efforts of women in Hollywood.

The Oscar-winning The Queen actress continued:

In the next few weeks, we will see a real-life example of this as women of all ages, all economic situations, all professions, vote. And hopefully they will change the landscape for future generations. It could not be more important. This is a defining moment.

I feel some kind of earthquake has happened, and there is a real, real possibility for change. And what women do, and how they influence the coming election, will have an incredible effect all over the world… It’s time for the best role model in the White House.

Mirren has largely remained quiet about this year’s upcoming election, though the actress did condemn Republican candidate Donald Trump in a February interview, before he had secured the Republican nomination.

“I think that there is an extraordinary, extreme right wing voice in America, extreme, and if that does get into power, fully, in the Congress, in the Senate, in the White House, and has all the power that it wants, I can’t imagine how the world would look,” the actress told England’s Channel 4 News. “I think it’s a very frightening idea myself. And this whole idea of ‘making America great,’ it seems to me that it would actually sort of be the end of America as a great country.”

Mirren wasn’t the only actress to weigh in on politics during Variety‘s annual event; Miley Cyrus, herself a vocal Trump critic, denounced the “villainous vibes that surround power” while referring to the Republican candidate, while actress Scarlett Johansson was honored for her work with Planned Parenthood.

“A woman’s right to choose is a deeply personal one and should not be a part of anyone’s political platform,” Johansson, who recently appeared in an anti-Trump celebrity voter registration PSA, told attendees. “It has nothing to do with politics in the slightest. It is about honoring and respecting women and upholding the law.”

 

Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum