Helen Mirren Helen Mirren Dame Helen Lydia Mirren, (; born 26 July 1945) is an English actor. Mirren began her acting career with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967, and is one of the few performers who have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2007 for her performance as Queen Elizabeth II in "The Queen" and received the Olivier Award for Best Actress and Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for the same role in "The Audience". Mirren's other Academy Award nominations include "The Madness of King George" (1994), "Gosford Park"
Judi Dench year in Ray Cooney's "Run for Your Wife". In 2011, Dench reunited with director John Madden on the set of the comedy-drama "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" (2012), starring an ensemble cast also consisting of Celia Imrie, Bill Nighy, Ronald Pickup, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, and Penelope Wilton, as a group of British pensioners moving to a retirement hotel in India, run by the young and eager Sonny (Dev Patel). Released to positive reviews by critics, who declared the film a "sweet story about the senior set featuring a top-notch cast of veteran actors", it became a surprise box-office hit