Helen Mirren

About Helen Mirren

Dame Helen Mirren, DBE (born Ilyena Lydia Mironoff; 26 July 1945), is an English actor. She is the recipient of numerous accolades and is the only performer to have achieved both the American and the British Triple Crowns of Acting. Mirren has received an Academy Award and a British Academy Film Award for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen; a Tony Award and a Laurence Olivier Award for portraying the same character in The Audience; three British Academy Television Awards for her performance as DCI Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect; four Primetime Emmy Awards; and a Children's and Family Emmy Award.

Mirren's stage performance as Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra at the National Youth Theatre in 1965 provided her an opportunity to join the Royal Shakespeare Company before making her West End stage debut in 1975. She subsequently went on to achieve success in film and television, appearing in films such as The Madness of King George (1994), Gosford Park (2001), and The Last Station (2009), receiving Academy Award nominations for each of those performances. For her role on Prime Suspect, which ran from 1991 to 2006, she won three consecutive British Academy Television Awards for Best Actress (1992, 1993, and 1994)—a record of consecutive wins shared with Dame Julie Walters—and two Primetime Emmy Awards. [4] She played Queen Elizabeth I in the television series Elizabeth I (2005) and Queen Elizabeth II in the film The Queen (2006); she is the only actor to have portrayed both of the regnant Elizabeths on screen.

After her breakthrough role in The Long Good Friday (1980), Mirren appeared in a variety of other films, including Cal (1984), for which she won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress; 2010 (1984); The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989); Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999); Calendar Girls (2003); The Tempest (2010); The Debt (2010); Hitchcock (2012); The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014); Woman in Gold (2015); Eye in the Sky (2015); Trumbo (2015); and The Leisure Seeker (2017). She has also appeared in several action films such as Red (2010) and its sequel Red 2 (2013), as well as in the Fast & Furious film franchise The Fate of the Furious (2017), Hobbs & Shaw (2019), and F9 (2021).

In the Queen's 2003 Birthday Honours, Mirren was appointed a Dame (DBE) for services to drama, with investiture taking place at Buckingham Palace. She's received numerous honors, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013, the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement in 2014, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2022.

She was awarded the Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire on the 2003 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to drama.