Watch Helen Mirren Talk The Audience & Becoming a 'Babbling Idiot' When She Met the Queen

Dame Helen Mirren made her regal return to Broadway earlier this month in The Audience as—who else—Queen Elizabeth II. The Oscar winner reprises her Olivier-winning performance at the palatial Schoenfeld Theatre, and couldn’t be more excited about bringing Buckingham Palace stateside. “American audiences sit forward. English audiences sit back,” she explained to CBS News’ Lee Cowan. “It’s a very different attitude.” And while she may look perfectly poised on stage, meeting the real Queen was an entirely different matter: “I got major what we call Queen-itis, which is when you see the Queen, you become this babbling idiot.” Take a look below at the interview, which also includes her extraordinarily simple motto against sexism: “F*ck off!” The Audience opens officially on March 8.