52 Facts About Helen Mirren

1.

Dame Helen Mirren was born on Helen Lydia Mironoff; 26 July 1945 and is an English actor.

2.

Helen Mirren is the recipient of numerous accolades and is the only performer to have achieved both the American and British Triple Crown of Acting.

3.

Helen Mirren subsequently went on to achieve success in film and television, appearing in films such as The Madness of King George, Gosford Park, and The Last Station, receiving Academy Award nominations for each of those performances.

4.

Helen Mirren played Queen Elizabeth I in the television series Elizabeth I, and Queen Elizabeth II in the film The Queen ; she is the only actor to have portrayed both of the regnant Elizabeths on screen.

5.

Helen Mirren's mother, Kathleen "Kitty" Alexandrina Eva Matilda, was a working-class woman from West Ham, the thirteenth of fourteen children born to a butcher whose own father was the butcher to Queen Victoria.

6.

Helen Mirren's father, Vasily Petrovich Mironoff, was a member of an exiled family of the Russian nobility; he was taken to England when he was two by his father, Pyotr Vasilievich Mironov.

7.

Helen Mirren became a diplomat and was negotiating an arms deal in Britain when he and his family were stranded by the Russian Revolution in 1917.

8.

Helen Mirren settled in England and became a London cab driver to support his family.

9.

Helen Mirren was an ambulance driver during the war, and served in the East End of London during the Blitz.

10.

Helen Mirren later worked as a driving-test examiner, then became a civil servant with the Ministry of Transport.

11.

Helen Mirren was the second of three children; she has an older sister Katherine and had a younger brother Peter Basil.

12.

Helen Mirren attended Hamlet Court primary school in Westcliff-on-Sea, where she had the lead role in a school production of Hansel and Gretel, and St Bernard's High School for Girls in Southend-on-Sea, where she acted in school productions.

13.

Helen Mirren subsequently attended a teaching college, the New College of Speech and Drama in London, "housed within Anna Pavlova's old home, Ivy House" on North End Road.

14.

Helen Mirren appeared in four productions, directed by Braham Murray for Century Theatre at the University Theatre in Manchester, between 1965 and 1967.

15.

In 1972 and 1973, Helen Mirren worked with Peter Brook's International Centre for Theatre Research and joined the group's tour in North Africa and the US, during which they created The Conference of the Birds.

16.

Helen Mirren then rejoined the RSC, playing Lady Macbeth at Stratford in 1974 and at the Aldwych Theatre in 1975.

17.

Helen Mirren's co-stars were John Hurt as her aimless lover Rakitin and Joseph Fiennes in only his second professional stage appearance as the cocksure young tutor Belyaev.

18.

In 1998, Helen Mirren played Cleopatra to Alan Rickman's Antony in Antony and Cleopatra at the National Theatre.

19.

Helen Mirren has appeared in a large number of films throughout her career.

20.

Helen Mirren appeared in The Madness of King George, Some Mother's Son, Painted Lady and The Prince of Egypt.

21.

In Peter Greenaway's colorful The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, Helen Mirren plays the wife opposite Michael Gambon.

22.

Helen Mirren continued her successful film career when she starred in Gosford Park with Maggie Smith and Calendar Girls with Julie Walters.

23.

Helen Mirren provided the voice for the supercomputer "Deep Thought" in the film adaptation of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

24.

Helen Mirren is the only actor to have portrayed both Queens Elizabeth on the screen.

25.

Helen Mirren later appeared in supporting roles in the films National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Inkheart, State of Play, and The Last Station, for which she was nominated for an Oscar.

26.

Helen Mirren portrayed a devoted plantswoman in the film, who coaches a team of prison gardeners, led by Clive Owen, to victory at a prestigious flower show.

27.

In 2003, Helen Mirren starred in Nigel Cole's comedy Calendar Girls, inspired by the true story of a group of Yorkshire women who produced a nude calendar to raise money for Leukaemia Research under the auspices of the Women's Institutes.

28.

Helen Mirren initially was reluctant to join the project, dismissing it as another middling British picture, but rethought her decision upon learning of the casting of co-star Julie Walters.

29.

Helen Mirren starred in the principal role of Prospera, the duchess of Milan, in Julie Taymor's The Tempest.

30.

Helen Mirren played a gutsy tea-shop owner who tries to save one of her young employees from marrying a teenage killer in Rowan Joffe's Brighton Rock, a crime film loosely based on Graham Greene's 1938 novel.

31.

Helen Mirren was initially hesitant to sign on due to film's graphic violence, but changed her mind upon learning of Bruce Willis' involvement.

32.

In 2012, Helen Mirren played Alfred Hitchcock's wife Alma Reville in the 2012 biopic Hitchcock, directed by Sacha Gervasi and based on Stephen Rebello's non-fiction book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho.

33.

Also in 2013, Helen Mirren voiced the character of Dean Abigail Hardscrabble in Pixar's computer-animated comedy film Monsters University, which grossed $743 million against its estimated budget of $200 million, and reprised her role in the sequel film Red 2.

34.

In 2015, Helen Mirren reunited with her former assistant Simon Curtis on Woman in Gold, co-starring Ryan Reynolds.

35.

Helen Mirren had a larger role in director Paolo Virzi's English-language debut The Leisure Seeker, based on the 2009 novel of the same name.

36.

At the 75th awards ceremony, Helen Mirren received her 15th Golden Globe nomination.

37.

In 2018, Helen Mirren portrayed heiress Sarah Winchester in the supernatural horror film Winchester, directed by The Spierig Brothers.

38.

Helen Mirren appeared in the 2022 music video for Kendrick Lamar's "Count Me Out" as a therapist.

39.

Helen Mirren is known for her role as detective Jane Tennison in the widely viewed Prime Suspect, a multiple award-winning television drama series that was noted for its high quality and popularity.

40.

Primarily due to Prime Suspect, in 2006 Helen Mirren came 29th on ITV's poll of TV's 50 Greatest Stars voted by the British public.

41.

Helen Mirren played Queen Elizabeth I in 2005, in the television serial Elizabeth I, for Channel 4 and HBO, for which she received an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award.

42.

Helen Mirren won another Emmy Award on 16 September 2007 for her role in Prime Suspect: The Final Act on PBS in the same category as in 2006.

43.

Helen Mirren lived with Northern Irish actor Liam Neeson during the early 1980s; they met while working on Excalibur.

44.

When interviewed by James Lipton for Inside the Actors Studio, Neeson said Helen Mirren was instrumental in his getting an agent.

45.

Helen Mirren has no children, stating she has "no maternal instinct whatsoever".

46.

In 1990, Helen Mirren said in an interview that she was an atheist.

47.

Helen Mirren stopped using it after reading that Klaus Barbie made a living from cocaine dealing.

48.

On 11 May 2010, Helen Mirren attended the unveiling of her waxwork at Madame Tussauds in London.

49.

In 2006, Helen Mirren stated that she was never a member of any political party.

50.

Helen Mirren became a US citizen in 2017 and voted in her first US election in 2020.

51.

Helen Mirren supported Patricia Ackerman in her campaign against Mark Amodei in.

52.

In January 2009, Helen Mirren was named on The Times' list of the top 10 British actresses of all time.