LONDON: Actress Helen Mirren, who won an Oscar for her film portrayal of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, has turned down an invitation for dinner at Buckingham Palace, the Mail on Sunday newspaper reported.

Mirren, star of “The Queen”, declined the monarch's rare invite because she was busy filming her new movie, “National Treasure: Book of Secrets”, in the United States, the paper said.

“It is unheard of for her majesty to extend a personal invitation to dinner to someone who has portrayed her in a film,” it quoted a senior palace official as saying.

“We did not expect to be told that the date is unacceptable.” Mirren told the paper that she was invited to dinner at the palace on May 1 but could not attend because she was filming and could not change her schedule.

In her Oscar acceptance speech after being named best actress in February, Mirren paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth, 80, as a woman who for half a century “has maintained her dignity, her sense of duty, and her hairstyle.”

“I salute her courage and her consistency. And I thank her, because if it wasn't for her, I most certainly would not be here,” she said, hoisting her Oscar aloft and adding: “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the queen!”—AFP