It’s sad Kurt Cobain ‘never got to see GPS,’ actress Helen Mirren says of the late rock star

There are surely plenty of things in our modern world that Kurt Cobain might marvel at had he not died in 1994 at the age of 27. We didn’t have the global positioning system on the list, but Helen Mirren did.

The famed British actress made the peculiar reference about the Nirvana singer and grunge icon in an interview with the Evening Standard: “I always say, it’s so sad that Kurt Cobain died when he did, because he never got to see GPS,” Mirren said. “It’s the most wonderful thing, my little blue spot walking down the street. I just find it completely magical and unbelievable.”

Mirren, 79, was making a point about her appreciation for aging, countering with the fact that as much as she loves her GPS spot, she feels grateful to have lived in a world without technology. “I knew a world without technology in a deep and full sense … Human connection was a very different thing back then,” she said.

Variety points out that Mirren has referenced Cobain and what he missed technologically numerous times in the past:

• In 2014, she told Oprah Winfrey, “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.”
• In 2015, she told Cosmopolitan, “I was thinking about Kurt Cobain the other day and he died without knowing the internet, and I’m totally blown away by that.”
• In 2016, she told the Daily Mail, “If I’d died at 27, the age that Kurt Cobain died in 1994, I’d never have even known there was an internet! Incredible things are happening all the time and I can’t wait to see what comes next.”