Helen Mirren dropped a few f-bombs over the weekend when a troupe of street drummers interrupted her performance as the Queen during a Saturday showing of "The Audience" in London.
Mirren, 67, reportedly marched outside during intermission Saturday — in full Queen Elizabeth II wardrobe and makeup — and berated a parade of performers promoting London's One in the Park gay music festival.
"This little old lady came running out in a green dress, pearls, and a tiara and headed for the conductor," band organizer Joe O'Leary told the Daily Mirror. "She was saying, 'shut the f— up, people have paid f—ing a hundred pounds for their theater tickets.' She said the f-word about 20 times. I kept saying, 'we didn't realize' and she was like, 'just shut the f— up.' You couldn't get a word in edgeways."
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Mirren, who earned an Olivier Award last week for her performance in "The Audience," a drama about the weekly meetings between the Queen and Britain's prime ministers over her 60-year reign, said she felt bad about her reaction afterwards.
"I'm afraid there were a few 'thespian' words used," Mirren told the Daily Telegraph. "They got a very stern royal ticking off but I have to say they were very sweet and they stopped immediately. I felt rotten but on the other hand they were destroying our performance so something had to be done. The drumming just slowly got louder and louder and then settled right outside the stage door. There was just a thin wall between drumming and the theater so it was unbelievably loud on stage. [Actor] Paul Ritter and I could hardly hear each other speak and the audience couldn't hear us speak at all.
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"I was so upset from struggling through a scene that I literally walked straight off stage, straight up the stairs, and straight out the stage door and banged my way through the crowd who were watching and said 'stop, you’ve got to stop right now’ only I might have used stronger language than that."
Mirren earned an Academy Award for Best Actress for her portray of Queen Elizabeth II in 2006's "The Queen."
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