Helen Mirren has always been graceful under pressure, and she knows how to cope when an interview gets a little heated.

A concrete example? The actor got the perfect answer when a reporter once asked him a question about her breasts early in his career.

The 75-year-old chatted with TODAY’s Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie on Wednesday and reflected on that moment when Hoda told her she was shocked at the way the reporter spoke to her.

“Helen, I was angry. I was so angry with your interviewer. I almost wanted to blow his nose up,” said the TODAY co-host.

The interview took place in 1975 between Mirren and broadcaster Michael Parkinson. During their conversation, Parkinson asked the actor the following question: “Do you find that your figure, your physical attributes that people have always talked about, hinder you in your pursuit of the ambition to be an actress? success?”

Mirren showed his chest as Parkinson finished his question and returned with an elegant and sassy answer.

“Because serious actresses can’t have big breasts, is that what you mean?” she said and gave him a garish look.

The reporter tried to clarify his question at this point and said, “Well I think they might somehow hurt the performance if you know what I mean.”

But Mirren wasn’t ready to back down.

“Really? I can’t think that can necessarily be true. I hope the performance in the room and the vivid relationship between all of the people on stage and all of the people in the audience will overcome these boring questions,” he said. she declared.

Savannah was impressed with the way the actor remained composed under the pressure and said, “Boom!” at the end of the clip.

“Did you hit him afterwards? What happened?” Hoda asked.

“No, what happened after was that I was blamed for being a little Bolshic and argumentative. It was me who was criticized, not him, because you know as we say,” different times, “” she said.

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The old interview clip went viral a few years ago, and Mirren told Hoda and Savannah that she was happy times have changed a lot over the past few decades.

“When you look at the movie landscape these days, it’s so different. I think the 70s were a terrible time for women in general, for actresses in particular – the 70s and then the 80s,” she declared. “And really, the late ’90s started to change, and the landscape is now completely different and so exciting, so much more interesting.”