Actress Helen Mirren, who captured an Academy Award for her leading role in The Queen, says she 'loved coke.' (Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press)

Oscar-winning British actress Helen Mirren said she used to love cocaine, but stopped taking the drug after learning that a Nazi war criminal profited from the trade.

The 63-year-old, who won an Academy Award for her role in the 2006 film The Queen, was quoted by GQ magazine as saying she used to dabble in marijuana and cocaine when she was younger.

"I loved coke. I never did a lot, just a little bit at parties," Mirren was quoted as telling the magazine in an interview, which was made available to the media Monday. "But what ended it for me was when they caught [Nazi war criminal] Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, in the early '80s. He was hiding in South America and living off the proceeds of being a cocaine baron.

"And I read that in the paper, and all the cards fell into place, and I saw how my little sniff of cocaine at a party had an absolute direct route to this ... horrible man in South America," she was quoted as saying.

The actress is also under fire for comments about date rape.

"I was [date raped], yes. A couple of times. Not with excessive violence, or being hit, but rather being locked in a room and made to have sex against my will."

Views on date rape stir controversy

She goes on to give an opinion of what she sees as a grey area.

Mirren talks about the scenario of a woman who voluntarily goes to a man's bedroom, engages in sexual activity, but then says "no" to him at the last second. Mirren doesn't think there is a legal case if the man ignores the woman and forces her to have sex.

"I don't think she can have that man into court under those circumstances. I guess it is one of the many subtle parts of the men/women relationship that has to be negotiated and worked out between them."

Vera Baird, Britain's solicitor general, called Mirren's remarks "dangerous."

"We want women to report rape with the confidence ... It really is a shame to cast doubt at the edges of what she thinks might not be rape," Baird told the Guardian newspaper.

Mirren also reportedly said she used to steal during what she described as a "very poor" youth.

"I needed to shoplift for food," she reportedly said, adding that while she enjoyed "the accoutrements of movie star life," she still had frugal instincts, cutting her own hair and wearing dollar-store glasses.

Mirren said she was not a royalist, but had become a fan of Queen Elizabeth since playing her in The Queen.

"It's a miracle she's never gone mad," Mirren was quoted as saying. "She is a remarkable person, who has achieved an amazing thing with a life she neither chose for herself, nor particularly wanted."

Mirren's interview is carried in the British edition of GQ, which goes on sale Thursday.