Helen Mirren: After 56 years as an actor I still fear I will be found out | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV

Some 56 years after she first trod the boards – and just a week before she is given a Lifetime Achievement Award by Kate Winslet at the LA Screen Actors Guild – the actress spoke of her continued insecurity.

Dame Helen said: “I think of myself as still being the way I was in my mind, in my body, through my 20s, 30s and 40s – struggling, ambitious, frustrated and self-critical.”

And revealing her continued insecurity about her abilities, she added: “There’s always that endless, niggling feeling: ‘Oh God, I’m going be found out any minute. I got away with it that time, but the next time…’ “Because you can never be absolutely sure that you’re that good.”

Next weekend, Dame Helen will add to the scores of accolades she has won – including an Oscar, a Tony and an Olivier Award for playing the Queen on stage in London and on Broadway, as well as a clutch of awards for Prime Suspect – when she receives the lifetime achievement award.

The guild’s president, Fran Drescher, said: “She has set the bar very high for all actors and, in role after role, she exceeds even her own extraordinary performances.”

But the actress herself played down such praise, saying: “I genuinely do not feel I remotely deserve it, except that I’m still alive and working.

“I’ve done some wonderful films and I’ve done some pretty awful films. It took me by surprise, completely.”

Later this week, Dame Helen returns to the big screen when The Duke opens across the country.

Starring opposite Jim Broadbent, the movie tells the true story of Kempton Bunton, a retired bus driver who in 1961 apparently stole a Goya portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in protest at the Government’s lack of help for pensioners.

“The Duke has the feeling of those wonderful Ealing comedies,” Dame Helen said, describing it as being in her top 10 pieces of work.