Why do a supporting role in an action sequel after an award-drenched year? The challenge of the new, she says.

Give her an Oscar. Give her a title. Give her whatever she wants.

Just don’t give Dame Helen Mirren any respect.

“I don’t much like the word respect,” the 62-year-old actress said in her Beverly Hills hotel suite as she prepared to leave for the airport to fly back to England.

“I don’t like to be respected. I tell people not to respect me. I don’t deserve to be respected on any level.”

But then Mirren shrugged her shoulders. “Having played the queen, I do have trouble sometimes getting people not to respect me. I have trouble reminding people that I am just an actress, and not actually the queen.”

Mirren, who is married to director Taylor Hackford, got her respect the old-fashioned way – by earning it through a four-decade-long film and stage career, and by enjoying the best year any actress has ever had. Just last year, she won an Oscar for playing Queen Elizabeth II in “The Queen,” and was seen in two Emmy-winning roles — Queen Elizabeth I in the HBO miniseries “Elizabeth I,” and Detective Jane Tennison in the popular British TV series “Prime Suspect: The Final Act.”

She is following those triumphs with a supporting role as Nicolas Cage’s mother in the action sequel “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” which opens Dec. 21. Playing an expert in dead languages, she helps her son interpret symbols during his quest to clear his family name in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER: You’ve worked very hard for a very long time to achieve a certain position in the movie industry, which has rewarded you with an Oscar. I don’t understand why you’ve decided to follow that Oscar win with a supporting role in someone else’s popcorn movie. Is that a career strategy?

DAME HELEN MIRREN (laughing): Oh no. I’ve never been a strategic person. My choices have always been a reaction against the thing I’ve just done. I ask myself: “What would be interesting to do that would be different from what I’ve just done?”

OCR: And you came up with an action sequel?

MIRREN: Sometimes I make choices because there’s an area I don’t know that much about and I would love to explore it. I didn’t seek out an action sequel. I didn’t call my agent and say: “Look for a nice popcorn movie for me.”

OCR: Did you jump at it when it came your way?

MIRREN: Actually, I wasn’t too sure about it at first. I hadn’t seen the first movie, and I was a little worried about doing a sequel. I’ve never done a sequel, and I questioned whether I should do it.

OCR: What swayed you?

MIRREN: I liked the character, and I liked that it wasn’t a leading role.

OCR: Why weren’t you looking for another leading role?

MIRREN: I needed a relief from that sort of responsibility. I wanted to give that responsibility over to someone else for a while.

OCR: Did you ever get to see the original “National Treasure?”

MIRREN: Not until after I read the script for the sequel, and I wasn’t thinking particularly positive about that script. These films’ finest hour is not on the page. They’re confusing on the page, and you don’t get the visceral feeling that you get on the set. The bare bones of the story are often complex and difficult to follow. I could sort of see it was a vaguely interesting little role, and there was some action stuff in it. Then I got to see the first movie, and I was quite taken with it. I thought it was charming and intelligent. It not only worked, but it brought to kids to the idea that history was something alive and exciting. It had a value beyond the pure entertainment, which, of course, was lovely.

OCR: Did it turn out to be as different as you had hoped?

MIRREN: Very different from any acting experience I had ever had.

OCR: In a good way?

MIRREN: Of course.

OCR: The director has said that the most difficult aspect of making this film was making sure it made sense. Is that true?

MIRREN: He and the rest of us worked assiduously, and with a great deal of commitment every day, to try to make the characters work, and to make the story work.

OCR: My wife and I drove home from the screening last night and discussed whether it all made sense.

MIRREN (laughing): I’m sure there are holes, but it’s a wonderful fantasy. That’s what I love about these movies. They’re not trying to be documentaries. They are Indiana Jones. But the brilliance of them is that they use historical detail with complete accuracy to move the story along.

OCR: In the movie, you are an expert in an obscure language. Did you work to make that accurate?

MIRREN: Yes, I went online to research the language and read everything I could about it. I learned that there are something like only four people in the world who know this language, and they are all arguing with each other all the time about what the symbols mean. The discussion about those symbols in the movie is 100 percent accurate. But one shouldn’t be too literal-minded about these movies. They are a fantasy adventure.

OCR: Tell me about last year.

MIRREN: Oh, where do I start? Actually, last year didn’t start last year. Last year started about two years before last year. That’s when the projects I did last year were being formulated. They all started at different times, actually, but at some point, I came to realize that I was going to end up playing Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Elizabeth II in the same year.

OCR: Was that overwhelming?

MIRREN: Just until you start doing it, and then you put your head down, grit your teeth and start working.

OCR: As for the awards season, did you appreciate what was happening to you as you were going through it?

MIRREN: Of course, but it was exhausting. I sound like a wanker saying this but you are very exposed at all those award shows. The spotlight is always on you and it is very much about how you look and what you say.

OCR: It couldn’t have helped to be the Oscar front-runner all the way through the process?

MIRREN:Yes, it was every second, and every minute worrying about saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing or wearing the wrong thing.

OCR: What was Oscar night like?

MIRREN: I had a good dress, which was important because I was very comfortable. I know that sounds really silly, but I wasn’t fighting my dress. You can’t be fighting your dress at such an event.

OCR: Did you feel any pressure?

MIRREN: I didn’t feel pressure at all. I felt utterly calm. And I enjoyed myself. I loved every minute of that night. I had been nominated twice before, and I was terrified the first time. The second time I knew I wouldn’t win so I was mostly relaxed. This time, I was absolutely determined to enjoy it. I had had such incredible good will coming toward me from America in the weeks that preceded the Oscars that I felt all warm inside.

OCR: Give me an example of the good will?

MIRREN: Each time I flew back from England, someone at customs would recognize me and wish me luck. It was so sweet. That happened wherever I went in America. So that night, I was floating on a cloud of love.

OCR: How do you feel about the title Dame?

MIRREN: Oh, that also brings me too much respect. I am a dame, but not in the sense that people think. I’m more of a “Guys and Dolls” dame.

Hollywood legend Dame Helen Mirren was flabbergasted by the support she received from American people ahead of her Oscar win this year.

The Queen star admitted to have been blown away by their charm and kindness.

“In the build up towards the Oscars, I was blown away by the sweetness and generosity of American, Contactmusic quoted the star, as saying.

I’d go through immigration, and they wouldn’t recognise me, but they’d look at the passport and say, ‘Oh Helen Mirren. Good luck. You’re gonna win. I hope you win,” she added.

Despite going up against American star Meryl Streep, the 62-year-old star was convinced that the whole country wanted her to win the Best Actress award for her role in The Queen.

Helen Mirren opens up to Louette Harding about sex with the wrong man, the secret of a good married row and her bond with her sister.

Helen Mirren is now, officially, a goddess, and she expends some effort trying to put others at ease. But she was a shy child and even today finds introductions awkward.

“That first interaction is quite nerve-wracking. You know, `I’m Helen, how do you do?’ Well into my twenties I had serious panic attacks at parties.”

Despite the Oscar, the Emmys, the Dame-ship, her status as a national heroine, residual clumsiness remains. As we sit down, I pay her the expected (but genuine) compliment on her autobiography. She bats it away briskly.

“I’m sure you say that to all the authors.” Great photos. She brightens. “Chris Worwood, my picture editor, was wonderful.” We are over the blip.

“I know my inability to deal with people may translate as arrogance so I work really hard to overcome that,” she says later. Actually, it doesn’t. It comes across as both spiky and vulnerable. And you find yourself thinking: no wonder she captured the essence of The Queen so well.

Helen lives in Hollywood with her film director husband Taylor Hackford, and spends half her time in London. When she says their lifestyle isn’t showy, I believe her.

“We do go to some fantastic industry parties, especially round Oscar time, and that’s great, but we don’t live in that world.”

Her life, as recounted in Helen Mirren – In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures; exemplifies the individualism and licence of the post-war woman. The child who finds the primary playground in Westcliff-On-Sea, “a place of cold terror, constant fear,” becomes an actor, “to force myself to overcome that.” She joins the National Youth Theatre, then the Royal Shakespeare Company. It’s the cusp of the 60s and 70s, interesting times for women.

Her book shows the moment she discovered the power of eyeliner, armoury against shyness. She chuckles.

“I wore no make-up at home ever, until I got to college. But I’ve always loved make-up, even though I hate having to look at myself in the mirror.”

And there comes a point when the external act (blithely Bardot) influences the internal?

“Early on in my career I got labelled as Stratford’s very own sex queen [in a newspaper interview]. It hung around my neck and if anything is still there. Yet maybe I brought it upon myself to an extent because I have always loved the eroticism of femininity, which to me is different from the Page Three thing. There are many different shades and I felt as if I was stuck with the wrong shade. Then a penny dropped. I realised we are two people at once: who we know ourselves to be and that stranger, how other people see us. You have to recognise you’re responsible for how other people see you.

“The 60s were terribly sexist,” she continues, “more than the 50s.” Other bachelor girls of the period I’ve interviewed have said they felt pressured into sexual adventures. Their mothers’ rule book went out of print.

“I always thought if I had a daughter, the first words I would teach her would be ‘Fuck off!’ I didn’t know how to say no. How to say, ‘I’m not interested, I think you’re boring.’ Men were horrible!”

Today, these episodes might even be termed date-rape.

“It wasn’t done violently. It was just being put in a situation where there’s only one way out. I think there’s something in between rape and consensual sex that’s kind of – you’re bored into bed. They go on and on and on and they won’t let you out of the flat. A couple of times I was in quite jeopardous situations and led into them by my own stupidity. Let’s say I’ve often had sex with people with whom I didn’t particularly want to have sex.”

But her own nous led her quickly to decent men who adored her. She talks about camping in France with Liam Neeson. “Imagine Liam, six foot four, in a Deux Chevaux!” Similarly, she only dabbled with drugs. “I was never good with drugs. Marijuana made me paranoid or miserable. I’m a non-addictive personality.”

After decades of cheery serial monogamy, she met Taylor Hackford in 1984 on the set of his film, White Nights. (They may finally work together again on a new film in 2008.) They married ten years ago. “We spend months apart and I think that helps. The thing about Tay is, he’s always exciting. We have a horrendous row within days of being reunited, because it’s annoying to have someone else telling you what to do, and then we get over that and we’re really happy.”

Helen is usually stereotyped as a man’s woman. But one pleasant discovery of her book is that she is also a girlie woman. Her best friends date back to the 60s, including Sandy, who now acts as her PA and who was going out with artist George Galitzine back then, “but she dumped him and I took him over so we’ve shared boyfriends, shared so much, and stayed good friends.”

And then there is Kate, Helen’s older sister, who joins us as we talk in a corner of the photographic studio. They became close in adulthood, especially after Kate had her son, but in childhood, “I didn’t feel I knew her.” Their father (a cab driver who was descended from Russian gentry) was even-handedly kind and loving: their mother didn’t really own a maternal gene, but didn’t have the choice that the contraceptive pill offered the next generation, including Helen. In later years, Kate drew the short straw, being the daughter who was on the doorstep.

“I got more patient and she got more needy, that’s for sure, once my father died,” says Kate. “But when Helen was here, Mum wanted to see her on her own. She did not want me to join them. Once she was really ill, I was a very good daughter, which was sort of cathartic.

“She loved the treats Helen could supply for her, such as a mink coat. After the war and never having much money, suddenly she was travelling club class.”

This sort of partially often stokes resentment. That it didn’t in their case is down to Kate’s good sense and a fulfilling career as a teacher.

“I think your position in the family is relevant,” Kate says. “Maybe Helen’s turned out the way she has because I’m such a bossy cow.”

“It’s my job to do what she tells me to,” Helen quips. (It’s fascinating to see how much of the talking Kate does when they’re together.)

“You can’t be resentful because, look, I get to go to the Oscars,” Kate continues. (Her son encouraged her to attend: “You have to be there, Mum, not in case she wins, but in case she doesn’t win.”)

By now, the two sisters are sharing a plate of Pavlova provided by the studio caterers. “I started a diet this morning,” Helen mumbles through double cream and meringue. “I don’t mind if my weight fluctuates by ten pounds. Life’s too short.”

Reading her book, you get the impression of a life lived riskily, but not foolishly. “I was lucky it never went wrong,” she says, “but, you know, the foolhardiness of youth is necessary.

“At the end of writing it, I did think, ‘Wow! Actually you’ve had rather an interesting life. You’ve been adventurous. You’ve been quite brave.’ And you know, I hadn’t thought of myself in that way before.”

Went down to the East Village to have a brief visit with Dame Helen Mirren, who was perched there in her fabulous penthouse view ready to take off for a promotional trip to London. Her new adventure movie with Nicolas Cage, “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” is an exciting departure for the vivacious Brit, who has portrayed three different English queens in the last decade, as well as being the voice of the Queen in two animated films (“Prince of Egypt” and “The Snow Queen”). “I can’t go on being royal, can I? Have to have a little sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll in my acting life!” said Helen.

I asked if she’d take a sleeping pill for the flight. “No, not long enough time to sleep,” said the woman who is top of the world since winning the Oscar for “The Queen,” plus Golden Globes for “The Queen” and HBO’s “Elizabeth I.” She also took the Emmy for “Prime Suspect.” She has received many other awards.

Such honors still happen every other day or so for this incredible British actress who most Americans had never heard of until PBS offered up her fabulous “Prime Suspect” detective series a few years ago. But this wonderful woman has actually been living in America with her husband, director Taylor Hackford, for the past 20 years off and on. They also have homes in LA, London and now in the heel of the Italian boot. Soon, Helen travels to New Mexico, joining Taylor, who’ll direct her in an upcoming film called “Love Ranch.” The dame who has interpreted England’s two great queens will play . . . a madam.

Helen gave me tea from a blue and white teapot, the full set with creamer, sugar and teacups. I was also offered scones, jam and little sandwiches. And there we were, me in my usual whatever and Helen wearing sweats without a speck of makeup. She said, “I usually just have tea in a mug, but I wanted to impress you.” We exchanged all our still-girlish secrets and gossip of the movies and theater. She lavished praise on, variously, Frank Langella, Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Nicole Kidman and many others we both admire. She is generous toward all her fellow actors.

The best thing of all was receiving her new book – a handsome volume titled “In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures.” This is already a $40 smash hit in Great Britain, and Simon & Schuster will bring it out in March 2008. Crammed with photos and candid opinions, it is an unusual work of art.

Just like Helen Mirren!

Helen Mirren jumps off her Oscar throne into a new action movie and opens up to us about marriage and who taught her about love. (Hint: It’s not the same guy.)

Helen Mirren stands regal in a red velvet gown as a photographer snaps away. She looks every inch the imperious goddess who’s graced many a costume epic. While a makeup person goes in for touch-ups, she introduces herself to me. “When this is done, we shall take our thrones,” she says, pointing toward a balcony space that has been set up for the interview. Then, she’s whisked away for a costume change. When she reappears, her demeanor is different. Dressed in a beret, sweater and slacks, she seems looser, relaxed, almost playful. Suddenly … splat!

In a studio in Culver City, Calif., the 62-year-old Oscar winner is whacked by a cream pie. Gobs of lemon meringue coat her face, while a cadre of hair, makeup and publicity people stand by, nervous. Grounds for death by hanging, perhaps? Not for this master thespian.

Mirren’s having the time of her life, laughing with every glob of gooey confection that ingloriously lands on her head. It’s all part of the photo session — conducted with her full consent. (Look for the pictures in our Dec. 28-30 year-end issue.)

If anyone qualifies as Hollywood royalty, it’s Helen Mirren. In 2003, she was named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Last year, she won an Oscar and two Golden Globes for her portrayals of two Queen Elizabeths (one of each for the movie “The Queen,” plus a Globe for TV’s “Elizabeth I”).

Clearly, it’s good to be the queen. After more than 40 years in the business, Mirren’s career is white-hot. She has four movies in the works, including one with Brad Pitt. “It is remarkable,” she says. “But it wasn’t like I was struggling and then suddenly I arrived. I just think the fact that it all came at one time, people sit up and go, ‘Where [in the world] did she come from?’

“Mirren’s latest project takes her about as far from a royal corset as she can get. In the adventure film “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” she plays Nicolas Cage’s mother, a linguistics expert who reluctantly joins a quest to find a book of centuries-old government secrets. “I kick ass, man,” she says. It’s her first big action movie and, among other things, she had to dangle 100 feet in the air. “I’ve wanted to do it all my life.” Mirren’s roll-up-your-sleeves attitude wasn’t lost on the cast and crew. “Oh yeah, she got very physical, and she was a real sport about it,” Cage says. “It’s funny,” he adds. “We’d be on the set, and [movie studio publicists] would introduce her as ‘Dame Helen Mirren, Academy Award winner.’ And I would say, ‘Well, I’m Ghost Rider!’ And she would say, ‘Exactly!’

“It’s that total lack of pretense that makes her so disarming. For instance, she’s a big fan of reality TV: “America’s Next Top Model,” I love it! I love Tyra Banks. It’s wonderful to watch the appalling nature of females. We are so awful!” For Mirren, no topic of conversation is off-limits. Between sips of veddy British milky tea and handfuls of oatmeal raisin cookies, she let’s it rip.

On her ex-boyfriend, actor Liam Neeson: “He taught me a lot of things — Northern Ireland politics, how to make a very good colcannon, an Irish potato and cabbage stew. And he taught me about love.”

On cosmetic surgery: “I absolutely believe in it! Why feel miserable if you can change something? But breast implants are weird to me. They seem a bit like hanging a pair of oranges around your neck.” [We didn't dare ask Dame Mirren if she's had any work done.]

On gay marriage: “I think gays absolutely should have the right. For the same reason Taylor [director Hackford] and I got married — to be able to say, by law, ‘This person is important to me.’ ” Mirren and Hackford have one of the most successful and scandal-free relationships in Hollywood. They finally tied the knot in 1997, after being together since 1984. She was 52 when they wed and hadn’t seen herself as the marrying kind. “I used to say, ‘I have nothing against marriage, but to me it’s like turnips. They’re just not for me.’ And now I love being married. I love saying, ‘I’m going to see my husband tonight.’ ”

Mirren can’t quite pinpoint why she was ready to seal the deal after a 13-year courtship. But Hackford is more forthcoming. “I wasn’t proud that I had two failed marriages,” he says. “But when we got together, we were both in our 40s. We had had lives and partners before that. We realized this was going to last, so we figured, what the hell!” He’s set to direct her early next year in “Love Ranch,” inspired by true events, in which she’ll play the madam of the first legalized brothel in Nevada. “It’s a great story,” Mirren says. “Legalized prostitution is not such a bad idea,” she adds. “It gets girls off the street, away from pimps and drugs.”

Insisting that she’s “a working actress, not a movie star,” Mirren chalks up her Oscar win to luck. The winning night, she says, was all a blur — except for a starstruck moment of her own. “I remember Leonardo DiCaprio kissing my hand,” she says. “It was so sweet. That was the highlight of the whole evening.” Mirren and Leo? Why not? These days, Mirren is often called “sexy and 60.” The men in her life agree.

“Her sensuality comes from her honesty,” says her husband. “She’s not hiding behind makeup or a baby- doll hairdo. She’s the real thing.” Adds “Treasure” star Cage: “I’ve had a crush on her since she was Morgana in [the 1981 movie] “Excalibur.” She looked sensational in chain mail. Oh yeah, that was good stuff!”

But Mirren claims not to give her sex appeal a second thought. “Sometimes I feel great and sometimes I feel really crappy,” she says.

“I’m just like everybody else — I’m always on a diet!” Then Mirren laughs and mischievously breaks off a chunk of a buttery cookie. “Can’t you tell?”

WE admit it – we’ve swallowed the Kool-Aid, and we’re not looking to be deprogrammed. We’ve also got plenty of company: the cult of Helen Mirren is the new big thing. Women of all ages are infatuated with the British actress who hits every role out of the park, dresses impeccably and says exactly what she’s thinking – which is unfailingly witty, whip-smart and/or mildly scandalous.

With an Oscar in hand, a new movie, “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” out next month and fashion accolades in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, Mirren is reaching new heights of recognition for something her diehard fans have known for years: She’s a hugely heartening counterpoint to rampant celebrity idiocy.

Her non-Botoxy glamour is part of it, for sure: At 62, she reliably outshines women half her age, while avoiding the tragic plastic-surgery spiral into which many older actresses are drawn.

“She looks her age, like she’s had a really exciting life. She’s attractive without looking phony,” says Jessica Morgan of the fashion blog Go Fug Yourself. “She wears stuff that’s body-conscious, but not sleazy or trying too hard or trashy. She seems to straddle that line of looking age-appropriate without looking dowdy.”

Her talent is, of course, a major factor – Mirren’s been turning in brilliant performances for decades, in movies like “Gosford Park” and “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover;” in the long-running British TV series “Prime Suspect;” and, of course, in “The Queen,” for which she won the Best Actress Oscar.

(Not to mention the infamous 1980 film “Caligula,” which she has described as “an irresistible mix of art and genitals.”)

But it’s her off-the-cuff commentary that really seals the deal for us Mirren admirers – sorry, Dame Mirren, a highly coveted royal title she rarely mentions.

Lately, the actress has been making one cheeky remark after another to the press; it’s the type of honest, unconventional stuff you always wish celebrities would say but they almost never do. In a world of inarticulate, spotlight-hogging ditzes, Mirren is a hurricane of fresh air.

“I basically loathe all young men, actually,” the actress recently told the Daily Mail, reminiscing about her early dating years in London.

“They start getting better when they’re 25.”

She’s also dished to that paper about her one-time experience with acid in the ’60s: “I thought, ‘That was great, that was wonderful.’ But it was very, very extreme,” she said.

She’s sounded off on those blatantly award-aspirational films in which beautiful actresses uglify themselves for a role: “All you have to do is to look like crap on film, and everyone thinks you’re a brilliant actress,” she’s widely quoted as saying. “Actually, all you’ve done is look like crap.”

And when Morley Safer asked her, on “60 Minutes,” whether she regretted not having kids, she was equally frank: “I am thrilled that I don’t have children – I have the thing I love, which is freedom,” she told him. “It’s a bit of a guilty secret because as a woman, you’re almost expected to be sad if you don’t have children, but that’s bulls – - t. There have always been women who don’t have kids.”

“Helen’s remark about being happy that she didn’t have children struck a chord in me and enlight-ened me to my own feelings,” says a 57-year-old New Yorker named Joan, who asked that her last name not be used. “She’s sexy, talented and real. She’s not afraid to show it off or strip it off. She’s a woman to be reckoned with and a great role model for women, especially those of us over 50.”

It’s not just the middle-age crowd that is responding, though – Mirren’s appeal resonates with women half, even one-third, her age.

“I think she rocks!” says 28-year-old New York designer Mikey Toledano. “She makes me want to be 60.”

“Personally, I find Helen so appealing because she doesn’t come across as the type of woman who puts up with any funny business,” says 19-year-old Londoner Kirsty Quinlan. “She appears to be genuinely comfortable in her own skin, a very refreshing notion in our image-obsessed world. Is she my role model? Absolutely.”

Feminist media gossip site Jezebel is a reliable source of Mirren love, linking to a new item about the actress on a near-weekly basis. A glance through the comments section, known for its snark, reveals an unusually sincere outpouring of adoration:

“Sigh . . . I love her more and more each day.”

“That one quote where she says her bespoke Oscar dress fit her [breasts] like two angel’s hands . . . Instant classic.”

“She is wonderful. The closest I’ve ever been to sending fan mail was after she went on ‘Jonathan Ross’ and talked about her peasant legs.”

“I love her a little bit more every time she talks. Wonder if she’d like to be my cool adopted auntie?”

More Mirren bon mots are on the horizon: Her autobiography, “In the Frame,” came out in the UK recently and is set to be released here in early February.

Of course, nobody’s perfect; even the woman who pulled off the one-two punch of playing both Queen Elizabeths in a year is prone to the occasional dubious movie choice. This year, that honor may go to “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” the inexplicable sequel to the Nicolas Cage Declaration of Independ-ence-theft action movie.

But we’d put up with just about anything in order to get Mirren out in front of the microphones again, quipping away and leaving her legions of female fans to nurse their girl-crushes anew.

We only wish we could actually present her an award, just to hear what she’d do with the acceptance speech. Especially if it was anything like the one at last year’s BAFTA awards, where Mirren kicked off with a reference to her canine co-stars of “The Queen,” a pack of corgis.

The opening line?

“Thank you, dogs and bitches all!”

Oscar Wilde once quipped that genius lasts longer than beauty. If he’d lived to see Helen Mirren in action today, Wilde would probably be crooning a very different tune.

In a scandal-happy showbiz fueled by botox-junkie actresses, rehab-hotties and jail-bound badsters, Mirren, 62, has done the impossible by today’s Hollywood standards: not just last, but blast her career into a level of super stardom that’s rarely ever seen. Women adore her. Men (as “H.M.” bloggers gladly confess) want to “show her a good time.”

Yes, for legions of fans singing Mirren’s ‘Love her, wanna be her’ mantra, there is nothing like a dame — Dame Helen, that is.

Now with her new autobiography, “In the Frame” (Orion/McArthur & Company), the Oscar winner can add another notch (including a Best Actress win this weekend at the European Film Awards) to her ever-growing laurels: that of writer.

“I wasn’t sure that I was able to write anything at all. To me the whole idea was terribly intimidating,” Mirren laughs in a phone call from London, England. But after 15 years of people asking her to do an autobiography — or have a ghost writer pen one (something the actress says “she couldn’t bear”), Mirren found herself in front of a computer during a tiny gap in a tight shooting schedule and started writing.

She can play the Queen. But can Mirren write?

“It just flew off the page and it’s not been changed,” says Mirren, whose fleet fingers nearly threw her publisher into a panic. “They wanted 20,000 words but before I knew it I’d written 56,000 and they were screaming stop. We’ve got too many words. It’ll be too big a book. Stop writing,” she laughs.

Treated as a scrap-book journey back over her life, the British actress famed for countless stage triumphs and memorable performances in films like “Excalibur,” “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover” “Calendar Girls” and “Elizabeth I,” Mirren’s new book is witty, honest, generous and engaging. What’s more, despite her heavyweight laurels, Mirren serves up a surprisingly un-distant read – one that leaves readers feeling that this classy “tough broad” is sitting right along side them gabbing over hot cup of Joe.

“If people feel that way that’s great,” says Mirren. “But I think that is a manifestation of the ease with this it came out — as if I was sort of chatting to someone sitting next to me.”

“My apprenticeship, incidentally, is still ongoing.”

From revisiting her aristocratic Russian roots (Mirren’s paternal grandfather, Pyotr Vassilievich Mironov, was a Russian nobleman who drove a cab in London after the Russian Revolution), to funny anecdotes about her parents, the nuns who taught her, the lousy flats she seemed forever cursed to rent as a young actress, and the men “who all taught me something valuable” (Liam Neeson and husband Taylor Hackford among them), Mirren’s story is rich, entertaining and one that makes “life apprenticeship,” not 15 minutes of fame, the real prize at the end of this page-turner.

“I was never particularly good at school, so I’m still trying to catch up in many ways,” Mirren laughs, describing her career, even at this stage of the game, as “an ongoing process of apprenticeship.”

In fact, Mirren’s passion for sinking her teeth into her craft — and life — shines from the moment her career began at 18 with her capricious, commanding and sexy portrayal of Cleopatra with England’s National Youth Theatre in 1965. A successful run with the Royal Shakespeare Company followed, as well as Mirren’s proper screen debut opposite James Mason in “Age of Consent” (1969) — a film that caused a sensation because of the 40-year age gap between its on-screen lovers.

Mirren’s appetite for experimentation (including a move to Paris for a time to work — a decision some RSC colleagues called sheer madness), along with her ’60s-forged sex appeal took her from ambitious starlet to ’70s stage luminary and beyond.

“I got to that point when I returned to the RSC, took to the stage anew just let it go,” says Mirren. “I was finally ready.”

A family affair.

Inspiring, too, is Mirren’s tribute to her parents and ancestors, particularly at the beginning of this book where she uncovers the meaning of some old letters sent to her grandfather from his family in Russia.

“They were stuck in this trunk that had been schlepped around from various moves,” says Mirren. “But I never knew what they said. I couldn’t read Russian.”

It was while working on the set of her hit, “Prime Suspect,” that the key to unlocking the letters fell into Mirren’s hands.

“We were shooting with a Russian actor and one day, right before me, was this English-Russian translator. I instantly thought Grandpa’s letters,” Mirren laughs, who passed the documents over and waited to see what they would reveal.

“Ah, it was extraordinary. Absolutely extraordinary,’ she sighs. “I’d always thought I’d grown up with my family history – but as I say in my book very much with the attitude that you’ve got to move on. You can’t look back. But what I experienced on reading those letters was this incredible sense of a curtain rising. Literally a curtain rising and revealing the lives of these people who I thought were just washed away by the tides of history and were just gone,” says Mirren. “It was an incredible revelation for me. Incredibly moving.”

There is one moment Mirren wishes could have ended “In the Frame.” “I went back to Russia after the book was published and found the ancestors of those aunts in the letters. It was an amazing experience sitting with their granddaughters. Just incredible.”

Mirren even found her great-grandmother’s grave and planted a rose on her grandfather’s once glorious estate with her sister by her side.

“I was convinced all those things and people were long gone and that I’d never find out anything about them,” she sighs. “But the experience was life-altering. It really was.”

Still waiting for that role of lifetime?

Playing Nicholas Cage’s mother in the December flick, “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” Mirren took on her first action adventure flick and, reportedly, ran, jumped and tossed with the best of them. She’ll also star in Kevin Macdonald’s upcoming “State of Play,” an adaptation of the British miniseries, and Taylor Hackford’s 2009 film, “Love Ranch,” a tale about the first legalized brothel in Nevada.

“I don’t think I can say there’s a role that’s eluded me. No, not really,” says Mirren. “When I was young I was desperate to play Juliet. God, I would have loved to play her. Obviously I can’t do that now,” she laughs.

With her “learn what you can” candor that fills “In the Frame,” screen queen Mirren takes the philosophical approach to the roles she has scored and the ones that got away.

“I’ve learned that often the best roles are the ones that take you completely by surprise. The ones you never expected or thought about playing, or roles in literature that you were unaware about,” says Mirren. “They very often become the most important roles of your life.”