Dame Helen Mirren is a thespian of a royal order, having recently become one of the only actresses to portray both Queen Elizabeth I and II on screen. The consistently brilliant thesp has been one of Britain’s best stage and screen performers for thirty years, and in 2006 the 61-year-old stunner has played a sexy assassin in “Shadowboxer” and is winning practically every major acting honor for “The Queen”.
Mirren was born Ilyena Vasilievna Mironov in Ilford, East London on July 26, 1945, the child of a Russian father and English mother. Her father found himself stuck in England during World War I, due to the explosion of the Russian Revolution while he was negotiating an arms deal for the tsarist government. In the 1950s he changed the family name to ‘Mirren’, around the time that young Helen was studying at a convent school. The aspiring actress was accepted by the National Youth Theatre at 18, where she debuted by playing Cleopatra, and by 20 was landing lead roles at the famed Old Vic Theatre. She quickly ascended the ranks at the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing lead roles in “Troilus and Cressida” and “Macbeth”.
A commanding and natural stage performer, Mirren has had an illustrious film career as well, beginning in her youth with sexpot roles in films like “Age of Consent” and quickly growing into a mature repertoire filled with Shakespeare adaptations and period pieces. She is famous for appearing nude on screen, which she has done in a staggering number of films, including “Excalibur”, “Savage Messiah”, “Hussy”, “The Roman Spring of Ms. Stone”, among many others. Her sex scenes with Cuba Gooding Jr. in the recent “Shadowboxer” and Peter Greenaway’s 1989 shocker “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover” are classic examples of her lack of fear of baring all.
In the past decade Mirren is best known for her role as Detective Jane Tennison in the English crime series “Prime Suspect” and for her Oscar-nominated roles in “The Madness of King George” and Robert Altman’s superb “Gosford Park”, which featured an array of famous English thesps including Maggie Smith, Kristin Scott Thomas, Clive Owen, and Emily Watson. She has also appeared in Sean Penn’s directorial project “The Pledge” with Jack Nicholson, the Kate Hudson rom-com “Raising Helen”, and the charming 2003 British comedy “Calendar Girls”, which also saw Mirren disrobe.
Mirren is the Best Actress Oscar frontrunner with her moving, subtle performance in Stephen Frears’s surprisingly funny “The Queen”, and will appear alongside Brendan Fraser and Paul Bettany in 2007’s “Inkheart”.