Helen Mirren strips off for photoshoot

Dame Helen Mirren has posed topless for a photoshoot.

The 64-year-old actress is currently promoting her new movie Love Ranch, which is about a married couple who open the first legal brothel in Nevada, America. It is based on real-life pair Sally and Joe Conforte, who opened Mustang Ranch in 1971.

The raunchy picture sees Helen lounging in the bath and was taken by photographer Juergen Teller for NewYork magazine. In the accompanying interview, Helen admits she loves the idea of shocking people. "I`m still the good girl who wants to be a badgirl," she explained. "But I`ll never make it as a bad girl... I`m not a prude or a moralist and I never have been, but I`m too fearful.

Helen added she is proud of her career as she has carved it out on her own. She has never depended on anyone else or done something she is uncomfortable with, and has no qualms about utilising her sexuality. However, she is quick to point out there is a difference between women making liberated decisions on their own, and having them forced upon them.

"The Playboy Mansion, coke, and the rise of all that - [Robert] Guccione and [Hugh] Hefner -always pushed it as liberation, but it didn`t seem like that to me," she said, when asked about women`s sexuality in the 70s and 80s. "That was women obeying the sexualized form created by men - though maybe we always do that, because we want to be attractive. But I was kind of a trail blazer because I demanded to do it my own way. I`d say, `I`m not having it put on me by someone else.` I didn`t want to be the sort of puritanical good girl with a little white collar who says, `Don`t sh*g until you get married.`"

She is glad to see moreyoung women using their feminine whiles these days, citing Lady Gaga and MileyCyrus as particularly impressive. She cites Madonna and Scarlett Johansson as"bold women" who should be admired for being sexy but alsointelligent.

sections: Celebrities