Helen Mirren says it's 'so sad' Kurt Cobain 'never got to see GPS'
The Oscar-winning actor says she finds the "little blue spot" of GPS technology "completely magical and unbelievable".
Friday 25 October 2024 20:30, UK
Dame Helen Mirren has said it is "so sad" Kurt Cobain died at such a young age and never got to see GPS.
The Oscar-winning actor lamented that the Nirvana frontman - who killed himself in 1994 at the age of 27 - missed out on the technology.
"I always say, it's so sad that Kurt Cobain died when he did, because he never got to see GPS," she .
"It's the most wonderful thing, my little blue spot walking down the street. I just find it completely magical and unbelievable."
The satellite-based Global Positioning System became operational in 1993, but was not widely available for use by citizens until more than a decade later.
It's not the first time Mirren has referenced Cobain when talking about technology and ageing.
In 2014 she told Oprah Winfrey: "You either die young or get old. There's no other way. I didn't want to die young. Look at Kurt Cobain - he hardly even saw a computer!
"The digital stuff that's going on is so exciting. I'm just so curious about what happens next."
A year later, in an interview with Cosmopolitan, she said: "I was thinking about Kurt Cobain the other day and he died without knowing the internet, and I'm totally blown away by that.
"The internet is a huge movement in the history of humanity - it's maybe even more important than the creation of the printing press. If the price I have to pay to see the future is getting older then so be it!"
'I'm not interested in being young'
The 79-year-old Prime Suspect star also reflected more generally on the process of ageing, telling The Evening Standard she remained "fairly healthy".
"I'm sure I'll go all pear-shaped soon," she told the newspaper.
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"But I'm not interested in being young. I'm interested in being exactly who I am.
"I never thought I'd be 79. I'm not full of youth, but I am life full. I much prefer that phrase… And I feel so grateful that I lived in a world without technology for quite some time.
"I knew a world without technology in a deep and full sense… Human connection was a very different thing back then."