A romance with a rocky start. Helen Mirren and Taylor Hackford have been together for more than 30 years, but their first encounter didn’t go smoothly.

The Oscar winner and the Ray director met in 1985 while Hackford was working on the movie White Nights, but Mirren wasn’t impressed when her future husband kept her waiting for an audition. “It was a strange way to meet Helen, because she is a lovely person,” the California native told AARP The Magazine in September 2006. “But she didn’t hold back her fury.”

After they got to know each other, however, the Queen actress came around, in part because of how Hackford interacted with his sons. “I have to say that the thing I loved most about Taylor was his absolute, total commitment to his children,” the Emmy winner told the outlet. The Bukows

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