‘He has never forgotten’: Miriam Margolyes reveals she flashed Martin Scorsese her breasts on film set

Miriam Margolyes has recalled how Martin Scorsese got to see much more than her acting when she flashed him while working together on the 1993 film, Age of Innocence.

The actress, 82, appeared in the director’s adaptation of Edith Wharton’s novel of the same name playing the role of Mrs Mingott in a cast which also included Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder.

Opening up about her experience of working with the revered filmmaker in her newly released second memoir, titled Oh Miriam: Stories from an Extraordinary Life, she told how she decided to flash him and the film’s crew members after one particularly long morning.

“Since 6am that morning, the crew had watched a long succession of actors parade across the podium for hair and make-up approval,” she wrote in the new book, adding: “Actor followed actor and hour followed hour. I was the very last one, facing an exhausted workforce.”

Margolyes said that, after seeing “their faces were polite but lined with fatigue,” she “felt it was my duty to raise their spirits”. Consequently, she “fell back on my well-tried remedy for the flagging male – and female”.

The Harry Potter then explained how she told a crew member in front of Scorsese: “‘It’s Miriam Margolyes playing Mrs Mingott, and you deserve these.’

“And without further ado, I pulled up my maroon ‘Dickens’ Universe’ T-shirt and my proud and thrusting breasts, released from any confining brassiere (I have always hated confinement) cascaded out of my clothes, in a snowy Victoria Falls of mammarial magnificence.”

She said Scorsese and the assembled crew’s reaction was a “stunned” and “dazed silence”, which quickly turned “into roars of laughter” and ultimately, according to Margolyes, “gratitude”.

Her story concluded: Breasts never fail!”, and said that Scorsese “has never forgotten” the memory, stating: “Many years later, he said to me, ‘I remember that hair and make-up parade most particularly.’”

This anecdote should come as no shock to Margolyes’ fans as she infamously has no filter.

Earlier this week, she caused havoc during an appearance on ITV’s This Morning when she swore twice on air and opened up about her sex life, including details getting her vagina steamed.