Why some women love to strip

Helen Mirren has appeared in so many nude scenes that some movie fans might struggle to recognise her with her clothes on.

But that has not deterred the serial stripper from launching an attack on female exhibitionism.

Miss Mirren, 58, was asked what she thought about Janet Jackson's recent stunt at the American Super Bowl final, when Justin Timberlake accidentally-on-purpose ripped open her costume to reveal a bulging right breast complete with nipple medallion.

'I think what Janet Jackson did was sort of inappropriate,' the British actress told the New York Times.

'People who have fake breasts have an absolutely burning desire to have people look at them.'

This might be seen as a little rich, considering Miss Mirren's own penchant for disrobing in front of the camera - most recently in the smash-hit comedy Calendar Girls. Of her 36 film roles, 13 have included nudity, although she has kept her clothes on for her best-known TV role, as policewoman Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect.

She did not help her argument by admitting, in the same New York Times interview, that she, too, would consider having cosmetic surgery.

She said: 'Yeah. People are looking at you on the screen. They've got to want to like you. It's not just vanity. It's the number one tool of your trade - the close-up. I think people should have nose jobs. If a nose is ridiculous, it's a distraction.'

Born Ilynea Lydia Mironoff, the daughter of an exiled Russian aristocrat, Miss Mirren went full-frontal in only her second-ever film, Age Of Consent, in 1969 and then again with Savage Messiah in 1972.

Film audiences have seen various facets of her birthday suit a further 11 times, including in the controversial soft-porn epic Caligula in 1980 and when playing Cal, an Irish widow, which won her a Best Actress award at Cannes in 1984.

She even stripped for her latest TV role - Tennessee Williams's The Roman Spring Of Mrs Stone - starring alongside Kylie Minogue's 37-year-old boyfriend Olivier Martinez.

And after appearing in the buff in Calendar Girls, the star - who is married to film producer Taylor Hackford - expressed an opinion on her own nudity which was decidedly different to that she has now reserved for others.

'There's never been a better reason for taking off my clothes,' she said at the time. 'It's always been my fate to play nude scenes. I've never sought them out - but I've never objected to them, either. And, oddly, it gets easier as I get older.

'I'm a nudist at heart. It's remarkable how quickly feelings of self-consciousness evaporate when you're surrounded by other people without their clothes.'