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Dame Helen Mirren initially planned to turn down the chance to portray Queen Elizabeth II for a second time because she was worried about upsetting the British monarch.

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The actress, who won an Oscar for her performance in 2006 film "The Queen," has reprised her role as the ruler for a London theater production called "The Audience," but Mirren reveals she almost rejected the job.

"I knew it was gonna be something I was going to be incredibly attracted by the thought of doing but absolutely didn't want to do (sic)," she told the BBC. "Because you don't want to repeat things anyway. I didn't want to become the actress who plays the queen, if you know what I mean. I don't think that's very nice for me, and it's not very nice for the queen."

However, Mirren felt compelled to sign up for the lead role after meeting the crew at a read-through of the play.

"I said I would do a reading of the play, and I went to the reading and there was this lineup of the most effective, successful, nice people working in the British theatre today, so I thought 'You're an idiot if you turn away from this. Look, there's a chance to work with this team, you should be so lucky,' " she said. "So even before I'd said a word of the read-through I thought, you know what you're an idiot, do it. And here we are."

"The Audience" officially opens at London's Gielgud Theatre on Tuesday night.