ADVERTISEMENT Dame Helen Mirren knows a thing or two about wearing a crown.
Over her six-decade career, she graced our stages and screens with her regal portrayals of powerful, complex women, from Cleopatra to Elizabeth II and Catherine the Great of Russia.
She is also the only actor to have portrayed both Queens Elizabeth on screen.
Helen Mirren turns 80 this Saturday. For her milestone birthday, Euronews Culture looks back at the memorable roles of a British acting royalty.
Helen Mirren was born lyena Lydia Mironov in London in 1945, to a Russian-born father and Scottish mother. The family chose to anglicise their surname to Mirren in the early 1950s.
She began her career on stage, joining Britain’s National Youth Theatre at 18. There, she distinguished herself playing the Queen of Egypt in “Antony and Cleopatra”, a role she reprised in 1998 opposite Alan Rickman at the National Theatre.
A year later, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she remained for 15 years.
From the stage to the screen
Mirren got her first major film role in Michael Powell’s 1969 romantic comedy-drama The Age of Consent. She later gained further recognition for her parts as an emperor’s wife in the 1979 erotic drama Caligula, a gangster’s girlfriend in The Long Good Friday and Morgana le Fay in Excalibur.
She earned her first Academy Award nomination for her role as Queen Charlotte in the 1994 film The Madness of King George.
The actor married American director Taylor Hackford in 1997, 22 years after they met on the set of his musical drama White Nights.
It was not until the early 2000s that Helen Mirren truly reached global stardom. She captured the public’s hearts and minds with her leading role in British police TV series Prime Suspect.
During her 15 years as Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison, Mirren created “the template for complex and compelling on-screen female characters in every genre”, the Guardian wrote in 2020.
With success came always more honours and accolades. She won three BAFTA TV awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards for her part in Prime Suspect.
Queen Elizabeth II made her a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2003.
Three years later, Mirren stepped into the shoes of the United Kingdom’s longest-reigning monarch in Stephen Frears’ drama The Queen.
Her nuanced portrayal of the sovereign in the weeks following Princess Diana’s death won her an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Defying stereotypes
Helen Mirren has earned a reputation for her elegance and wildness. Often described as a sex symbol in her youth, she said she never applied the label to herself.
In recent years, she has defied stereotypes against older women, becoming the face of L’Oréal at 69 years old in 2014.
Mirren has also publicly embraced feminism.
“When I was growing up, it was thought to be unbelievably sluttish to even have a bra strap showing. Everything was about women conforming”, she told the Telegraph in 2016.
“I love shameless women. Shameless and proud!”
Unafraid of challenges, she kept on pursuing diverse, sometimes unexpected roles.
She was Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the 2023 film Golda, a ruthless crime boss in TV series Mobland, and even Kendrick Lamar’s therapist in his 2022 ‘Count Me Out’ music video.
Happy Birthday Helen Mirren!
