stats people / SIGNAL
enes
LIVE
← PEOPLE
stats people / Culture
LIVE
Helen Mirren
Harald Krichel · CC BY-SA 3.0
Culture

Helen Mirren

Helen Mirren is the British-American actress, 81, who returns as Maeve Harrigan in MobLand season 2 on Paramount+ from September 18, 2026, and who premiered A Talent for Murder at Toronto this month playing Patricia Highsmith. She has an Oscar, a Tony, five Emmys and four BAFTAs, and received the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2026 Golden Globes.

By · stats people · Updated September 16, 2026
All 14 questions▾
What people ask

People also ask

01

Where does Helen Mirren live?

Between three places. She keeps a home in London, lives with Taylor Hackford in the United States, in Los Angeles and at a house in the mountains near Lake Tahoe, and spends her summers at a restored 16th-century masseria in Tiggiano, in the Salento, the southern tip of Puglia. She celebrated her 80th birthday there in 2025 and campaigns locally with Save the Olives after Xylella killed the olive groves around the property. Sources: Wikipedia, Hollywood Reporter, HELLO!.

02

What is Helen Mirren's nationality?

She holds both British and American citizenship. She was born in London to an English mother and a Russian father, and took US citizenship in 2017 after decades of working and living in America. Her family name was Mironoff, anglicised to Mirren in the 1950s. Source: Wikipedia.

03

How old is Helen Mirren?

She was born on 26 July 1945, which makes her 81 years old in September 2026. Source: Wikipedia.

04

How tall is Helen Mirren?

Around 1.63 m (5 ft 4 in), the figure carried by most film references. It is a widely reported number rather than an official one. Source: CelebHeights.

05

Is Helen Mirren in MobLand season 2?

Yes. She is back as Maeve Harrigan, the matriarch of the Harrigan crime family, alongside Pierce Brosnan as her husband Conrad and Tom Hardy as the family fixer Harry Da Souza. Season 2 lands on Paramount+ on 18 September 2026, with ten episodes released weekly to a finale on 20 November. Sources: Paramount+, TVInsider, Deadline.

06

Has MobLand been renewed for season 3?

Yes, and unusually early. Paramount+ renewed it on 3 September 2026, two weeks before season 2 had even aired, with Hardy, Brosnan and Mirren all confirmed to return. Sources: Paramount+, Deadline.

07

What is Helen Mirren's new film?

A Talent for Murder, directed by Anton Corbijn, in which she plays the novelist Patricia Highsmith opposite Alden Ehrenreich as a young man who travels to Switzerland to talk her into one more Ripley book. It is adapted from Joanna Murray-Smith's play Switzerland, premiered at Toronto in September 2026 and opens in US cinemas on 23 October 2026. Sources: Wikipedia, Variety, Hollywood Reporter.

08

What did Helen Mirren say about playing Patricia Highsmith?

That Highsmith was the most difficult real person she has ever played, describing her as very abrasive. Mirren has played the Queen twice, Golda Meir and Catherine the Great, so the comparison carries some weight. Source: Hollywood Reporter.

09

Is Helen Mirren still alive?

Yes. A story circulating in September 2026 claiming she had died is a hoax, of the recurring kind that has targeted dozens of well-known actors. She premiered A Talent for Murder at Toronto that same month. Sources: Mediamass, Hollywood Reporter.

10

How many Oscars has Helen Mirren won?

One, Best Actress for playing Elizabeth II in The Queen, awarded at the 2007 ceremony. She has been nominated four times in all, starting with The Madness of King George in 1995. Source: Wikipedia.

11

What awards has Helen Mirren won?

An Academy Award, a Tony for The Audience in 2015, five Primetime Emmys, four BAFTAs and three Golden Globes, which makes her one of the few performers to hold the Oscar, Emmy and Tony set. She was made a Dame in 2003, received the SAG Life Achievement Award in 2022, and received the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2026 Golden Globes in January. Sources: Wikipedia, IMDb, Golden Globes.

12

What is Helen Mirren best known for?

For Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect, the ITV detective series she played across seven series from 1991 to 2006 and which won her three BAFTAs and two Emmys, and for Elizabeth II in The Queen. Younger audiences know her as Queenie Shaw in the Fast & Furious films, Cara Dutton in 1923, and the narrator of Barbie. Source: Wikipedia.

13

Who is Helen Mirren's husband?

The American director Taylor Hackford, who directed Ray and An Officer and a Gentleman. They met on the set of White Nights in 1984, have been together since 1986 and married in 1997. Mirren has no children and has spoken about that choice plainly throughout her career. Source: Wikipedia.

14

Was Helen Mirren in The Thursday Murder Club?

Yes, as Elizabeth Best, the retired spy, in Chris Columbus's adaptation of Richard Osman's novel, released on Netflix on 28 August 2025 with Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie. Netflix holds rights to the sequel novels and a follow-up has been widely expected, but no shooting or release date has been officially announced. Sources: Netflix, Deadline, Forbes.

Background

Who Is Helen Mirren?

Helen Mirren is a British and American actress who has been working continuously for sixty years and has spent the last fifteen of them refusing to slow down into character parts. Born Ilyena Lydia Mironoff in Hammersmith, London, on 26 July 1945, to an English mother and a Russian father whose family had been stranded in Britain by the revolution, she trained through the National Youth Theatre and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at twenty-two.

Television made her famous rather than film. Prime Suspect, which began in 1991, gave her DCI Jane Tennison, a senior detective fighting her own squad as much as the case, and she played it across seven series until 2006. The screen version of the British establishment came next: The Madness of King George, Gosford Park, and then The Queen in 2006, which won her the Academy Award for Best Actress. She is one of the small group of performers holding an Oscar, an Emmy and a Tony, the last for The Audience in 2015, in which she played Elizabeth II again, this time on stage.

The later career has been deliberately unserious where it wants to be. She joined the Fast & Furious films as Queenie Shaw because, by her own account, she asked to be in them. She narrated Barbie. She played Cara Dutton in Taylor Sheridan’s 1923. And since 2025 she has been Maeve Harrigan in MobLand, Ronan Bennett’s London gangster drama for Paramount+, where she and Pierce Brosnan run a crime family and Tom Hardy cleans up after it. The first season was the platform’s biggest global launch, season 2 arrives on 18 September 2026, and a third was ordered on 3 September, before the second had aired.

September 2026 also brought A Talent for Murder, Anton Corbijn’s chamber thriller in which she plays Patricia Highsmith at the end of her life in Switzerland, sparring with a young man who wants one more Ripley novel out of her. It premiered at Toronto and reaches US cinemas on 23 October. Mirren has called Highsmith the most difficult real person she has played, which from an actress whose back catalogue includes Golda Meir and Catherine the Great is a specific kind of compliment.

She lives between London, the United States with her husband Taylor Hackford, and a 16th-century farmhouse in Tiggiano, in the far south of Puglia, where she grows vegetables, has replanted olive trees killed by Xylella and is treated by the village as a neighbour rather than a visitor. In January 2026 she received the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes, the industry’s way of marking a whole career rather than a single performance. She does not appear to be treating it as a full stop. Sources: Wikipedia, Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Paramount+, Golden Globes.

Privacy choices