Helen Mirren

Biography:

Dame Helen Mirren is an English actress who was born Ilyena Lydia Vasilievna Mironov on July 26, 1945. The Academy Award, four BAFTA Awards, five Emmy Awards, three Golden Globes, an Olivier Award, and a Tony Award are just a few of the many honors she has received throughout the course of her 60-year career. She received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2022, the Honorary Golden Bear in 2020, and the BAFTA Fellowship in 2014. In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II appointed Mirren a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE).

At the age of 18, Mirren began performing with the National Youth Theatre, where she portrayed Cleopatra in the 1965 production of Antony and Cleopatra. In 1975, she debuted on the West End stage after joining the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her performance as Elizabeth II in Peter Morgan’s play The Audience (2013) earned her the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress. She earned the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play after playing the part again on Broadway. She received Tony nominations for both The Dance of Death (2002) and A Month in the Country (1995).

Mirren’s performance as Queen Elizabeth II in the movie The Queen (2006) earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her performances in Gosford Park (2001), The Last Station (2009), and The Madness of King George (1994) earned her an Oscar nomination. Her acting credits include Eye in the Sky (2015), Hitchcock (2012), The Tempest (2010), Caligula (1979), Excalibur (1981), The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), and Trumbo (2015). In addition, she starred in four Fast & Furious movies and the action movies Red (2010) and its 2013 follow-up.