The Internet has been talking about Academy Award-winning actress Helen Mirren’s racy photos in New York magazine to promote her upcoming film, Love Ranch, based on a true story about the husband and wife team who owned Nevada’s first legalized brothel in the 1970s. You can investigate on your own but we particularly like this quote:

There’s the old joke about actors prostituting themselves for their work, but for Mirren, who’s revealed so much of herself (metaphorically and otherwise), and who has often spoken out about the way women get eaten up by the entertainment industry, it’s a complex metaphor. “The girls who work in the sex industry, they put themselves out of their bodies. An actor does sort of the opposite,” says Mirren, who talks about acting as giving every intimacy—emotional and physical—except actual intercourse. “People say ‘Oh, you play someone else.’ I’m always playing myself. You can only do it by going into yourself, in the deepest, most terrifying way. Not to say I haven’t ever prostituted myself quite often and happily. But in my heart it’s very serious.”

Mirren will appear (fully clothed) at 92Y for a preview screening and discussion of Love Ranch on June 28 with director (and her husband) Taylor Hackford.

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