Dame Helen Mirren has branded all social media ''distasteful''.

The 'Hundred-Foot Journey' actress - who is married to director Taylor Hackford - thinks websites like Twitter can be useful for marketing and as a political ''tool'', but she won't use them herself.

When asked if she is on Twitter or another form of social media, the 68-year-old actress replied: ''No, I'm not a social media person. It's not that it upsets me, that's not the right word, but I find it distasteful. But I see it as a great tool politically and obviously it's a great marketing tool.''

However, the 'Queen' star admitted she once signed up for a Facebook account to keep in touch with her family - but deleted her profile after just a day.

She added to Britain's HELLO! magazine: ''Well, I did - I went on Facebook for about 24 hours because I have young members of my family and I travel a lot and I wanted to be in touch.

''But I found very rapidly - literally within 24 hours - that I just found it so intrusive and I didn't want strangers wanting to become my friends. I just didn't want that. There was something really scary about it and I didn't like it at all.''