Dame Helen Mirren, most known for her roles in the “Fast and Furious” franchise if you ignore everything else she’s done, recently did an interview with the Standard. It was a wide-ranging conversation that covered everything from fashion and Catholic convent schools to science and Israel-Palestine. She even found time to talk about how sad she was Kurt Cobain (yes, of Nirvana), died when he did because he never got to experience GPS. No, folks. I’m not joking.
“I always say, it’s so sad that Kurt Cobain died when he did, because he never saw GPS. GPS is the most wonderful thing, to watch my little blue spot walking down the street,” Mirren told the Standard. “I just find it completely magical and unbelievable.”
The interviewer brought up to Mirren that “they’re tracking you.” However, she doesn’t really mind, saying, “I know they are. I really don’t care.” Neither do I, sister.
To be fair to Mirren, who fucking rocks, this wasn’t completely out of left field. She was musing about aging in general, saying, “If you’re lucky, you get to be older. And then there you are. Oh my God, I’m 79! I never thought I’d be 79. And then you say, OK, well this is it. This is what 79 is. And it’s kind of OK. It’s not brilliant, but it was not that brilliant to be 25 either.”
This actually isn’t the first time Mirren has referenced Cobain – who died by suicide in April of 1994 – when talking about aging, as Variety explains:
In 2014, she told Oprah Winfrey, “Look at Kurt Cobain — he hardly even saw a computer! The digital stuff that’s going on is so exciting. I’m just so curious about what happens next.”
A year later, she told Cosmopolitan, “I was thinking about Kurt Cobain the other day and he died without knowing the internet, and I’m totally blown away by that.” And, in 2016, she said to the Daily Mail, “If I’d died at 27, the age that Kurt Cobain [of rock band Nirvana] died in 1994, I’d never have even known there was an internet! Incredible things are happening all the time and I can’t wait to see what comes next.”
It’s sort of sweet that Mirren is always thinking about Cobain and what his world would have been like if he was still alive. He probably would have really dug GPS. It’s pretty cool.