Mirren was born Helen Lydia Mironoff on 26 July 1945[9][10] at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital in the Hammersmith district of London,[11][12] to an English mother and Russian father.

[16] His mother, Mirren's great-grandmother, was Countess Lydia Andreevna Kamenskaya (1848–1928), an aristocrat and a descendant of Count Mikhail Fedotovich Kamensky, a prominent Russian general in the Napoleonic Wars.

In 1972 and 1973, 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.

Sally Beauman reported, in her 1982 history of the RSC, that Mirren—while appearing in Nunn's Macbeth (1974), and in a letter to The Guardian newspaper—had sharply criticised both the National Theatre and the RSC for their lavish production expenditure, declaring it "unnecessary and destructive to the art of the Theatre", and adding, "The realms of truth, emotion and imagination reached for in acting a great play have become more and more remote, often totally unreachable across an abyss of costume and technicalities..." This started a big debate, and led to a question in parliament.

That same year she also won acclaim for her performance in the title role of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, a production of Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre which was later transferred to The Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, London.

Reviewing her portrayal for The Sunday Telegraph, Francis King wrote: "Miss Mirren never leaves it in doubt that even in her absences, this ardent, beautiful woman is the most important character of the story."

Mirren's television performances include Cousin Bette (1971); As You Like It (1979); Blue Remembered Hills (1979); and The Twilight Zone episode "Dead Woman's Shoes" (1985).

[39] In Elegy for a Lady she played the svelte proprietress of a classy boutique, while as the blonde hooker in Some Kind of Love Story she was "clad in a Freudian slip and shifting easily from waif-like vulnerability to sexual aggression, giving the role a breathy Monroesque quality".

[40] 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.

[42] A further stage breakthrough came in 1994, in an Yvonne Arnaud Theatre production bound for the West End, when Bill Bryden cast her as Natalya Petrovna in Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country.

[46] In 2000 Nicholas Hytner, who had worked with Mirren on the film version of The Madness of King George, cast her as Lady Torrance in his revival of Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending at the Donmar Warehouse in London.

Michael Billington, reviewing for The Guardian, described her performance as "an exemplary study of an immigrant woman who has acquired a patina of resilient toughness but who slowly acknowledges her sensuality.

At the National Theatre in November 2003 she again won praise playing Christine Mannon ("defiantly cool, camp and skittish", Evening Standard; "glows with mature sexual allure", Daily Telegraph) in a revival of Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra directed by Howard Davies.

[48] 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.

A homage to writer Agatha Christie's whodunit style, the story follows a party of wealthy Britons and an American, and their servants, who gather for a shooting weekend at an English country house, resulting in an unexpected murder.

[55] Mirren initially was reluctant to join the project, dismissing it as another middling British picture,[56] but rethought her decision upon learning of the casting of co-star Julie Walters.

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

[68] Mirren's biggest critical and commercial success of the year was Robert Schwentke's ensemble action comedy Red, based on Warren Ellis's graphic novel, in which she portrayed Victoria, an ex-MI6 assassin.

Set at the height of communist rule in 1960s Hungary, the story of the adaptation centres on the abrasive influence that a mysterious housekeeper wields over her employer and successful novelist, played Martina Gedeck.

Her Tony Award win made her one of the few actors to achieve the US "Triple Crown of Acting", joining the ranks of acclaimed performers including Ingrid Bergman‚ Dame Maggie Smith, and Al Pacino.

[82] The HBO film focuses on the relationship between Spector and his defence attorney Linda Kenney Baden, played by Mirren, during the first of his two murder trials for the death in 2003 of Lana Clarkson in his California mansion.

Directed by Lasse Hallström and produced by Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey, the film is based on Richard C. Morais's 2010 novel with the same name and tells the story of a feud between two adjacent restaurants in a French town.

[88] The film was based on the true story of Jewish refugee Maria Altmann who, together with her young lawyer Randy Schoenberg, fought the Austrian government to be reunited with Gustav Klimt's painting of her aunt, the famous Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I.

[92] The same year, Mirren appeared in Gavin Hood's thriller Eye in the Sky (2015), in which she played as a military intelligence officer who leads a secret drone mission to capture a terrorist group living in Nairobi, Kenya.

The actor played Hedda Hopper, the famous actress and gossip columnist, in the film, which received generally positive reviews from critics and garnered her a 14th Golden Globe nomination.

On set, she was reunited with Donald Sutherland with whom she had not worked again since Bethune: The Making of a Hero (1990),[99] portraying a terminally ill couple who escape from their retirement home and take one last cross-country adventure in a vintage van.

But between the pictures there are almost 200 pages of densely printed text, an unusually frank story of her private and professional life, mainly in the theatre, the words clearly Mirren's own, delivered with forthright candour.

"[116] In April 2021, she took part in the music video "La Vacinada" (meaning the vaccinated woman in broken Spanish language) of Italian comedian and singer Checco Zalone.

Subtitled "Britain's leading ladies", the campaign featured Mirren alongside British women from various fields, including pop singer Ellie Goulding, double Olympic gold medal-winning boxer Nicola Adams, and writer Monica Ali.

[137] In the Queen's 2003 Birthday Honours, Mirren was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to drama, with investiture taking place at Buckingham Palace in December.