SAG Award® and Oscar®-winning actress Helen Mirren has been named the 57th recipient of SAG-AFTRA’s highest tribute: the SAG Life Achievement Award for career achievement and humanitarian accomplishment. Mirren will be presented the performers union’s top accolade at the 28th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, which will be simulcast live on TNT and TBS on Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022 at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT from The Barker Hangar in Santa Monica.
Given annually to an actor who fosters the “finest ideals of the acting profession,” the SAG Life Achievement Award will be the latest of Mirren’s esteemed catalog of international industry and public distinctions recognizing her masterful performances on stage, screen and television. Her previous honors have included an Oscar, multiple SAG Awards, three Emmys®, numerous BAFTA Awards, a Tony Award®, a BAFTA Fellowship Award, The Film Society at Lincoln Center’s Chaplin Award, and she was made a Dame of the British Empire in 2003. To date, Mirren is the most decorated SAG Life Achievement recipient with a total of 13 SAG Awards nominations and five SAG Awards Actor® wins.
Mirren is currently filming Golda in the title role of Golda Meir. She is also set to host Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses, a four-part competition series premiering on Sunday, Nov. 28 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT, on TBS and Cartoon Network.
SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said, “Dame Helen Mirren is quite simply a brilliant and luminous talent. Her work runs the gamut of characters from a not-so-retired CIA super-killer and a ruthless Russian spy handler to a Hungarian cleaning lady and the most exquisite Elizabeth II. She has set the bar very high for all actors and, in role after role, she exceeds even her own extraordinary performances. I’ve always felt a kinship with Helen. She’s the Queen of England and I’m the Queen of Queens. She won an Oscar and I’m left-hander of the year. It’s uncanny. And, it is my deep, personal honor to be the first to congratulate Helen as the 57th recipient of the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. Bravo, my dear!”
“I am honoured to have been chosen to receive the SAG Life Achievement Award,” said Mirren. “Since I was a young actor starting out, I have always been inspired by and learned from American screen acting, so this award is particularly meaningful for me.”
Film
Over the course of Mirren’s illustrious film career, she has earned international acclaim for her appearance in over 70 films. Her first major film was Age of Consent in 1969, and had her breakthrough performance in The Long Good Friday in 1980. Early films have included Excalibur, Cal, The Mosquito Coast, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, and Where Angels Fear to Tread.
In 2006, she received an Academy Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, and BAFTA Award for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen. Her critically acclaimed performance in the 2001 film Gosford Park earned her dual SAG Awards, one for Female Actor in a Supporting Role and a second as part of the winning cast. Mirren has also received Oscar nominations for her performances in The Madness of King George, Gosford Park, and most recently earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in The Last Station.
Among her other film credits are Some Mother’s Son, on which she also served as associate producer, Calendar Girls, The Clearing, Shadowboxer, State of Play, The Tempest and Brighton Rock. Recent films include F9, The Good Liar, Berlin, I Love You, Anna, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, The Leisure Seeker and Trumbo. Previous works include 100 Foot Journey, Hitchcock for which she was nominated for a SAG Award among others, RED and RED 2, The Debt and The Door.
Mirren will next be seen in Sony Pictures Classics’ The Duke with Jim Broadbent, due for release in Spring 2022, and Lionsgate’s White Bird: A Wonder Story, to be released later in 2022. She most recently finished filming Warner Bros.’ highly anticipated Shazam! sequel, Shazam! Fury of the Gods.
Television
On television, Mirren starred in the award-winning series Prime Suspect as Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison where she earned an Emmy Award and three BAFTA Awards, as well as numerous award nominations. She won another Emmy Award when she reprised the role in 2006’s Prime Suspect 7: The Final Act, the last installment in the PBS series. In 2013, she starred with Al Pacino in the HBO biopic Phil Spector, for which she won a SAG Award for her performance and was nominated for an Emmy. Mirren was also honored for her performance as Queen Elizabeth I in the HBO miniseries Elizabeth I, winning a SAG Award and an Emmy.
Her long list of television credits also includes Losing Chase, The Passion of Ayn Rand, Door to Door, and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, earning Emmy and SAG Award nominations and awards. She was most recently seen in Amazon’s sci-fi anthology miniseries Solos, the Netflix comedy special Sarah Cooper: Everything’s Fine and the four-part, limited series for HBO/SKY in the title role of “Catherine the Great.”
Theatre
Mirren began her career in the role of Cleopatra at the National Youth Theatre and then joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she starred in such productions as Troilus and Cressida and Macbeth. In 1972, she joined renowned director Peter Brook’s theatre company and toured the world.
On stage, Mirren reprised her role as Queen Elizabeth II on Broadway in The Audience, a play by Peter Morgan, directed by Stephen Daldry, for which she won the 2015 Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. In 2013 she debuted her stage role of Elizabeth II in The Audience in London’s West End, for which she received the Olivier Award and Evening Standard Award, and 2014 WhatsOnStage Award, for Best Actress.
Philanthropy
Outside of performing on the stage, screen and television, Mirren devotes her time to supporting a range of charitable organizations including Meals on Wheels, which operates across America to address senior hunger and isolation, and SAY: The Stuttering Association for the Young, a national non-profit organization that provides support, advocacy and life-changing experiences for young people who stutter. She has hosted a number of SAY events promoting their work empowering children who stutter. Mirren was recognized at Variety’s 2016 Power of Women event for her work with the organization.
Additionally, Mirren was named an Ambassador for Women For Women International, a charity that supports women who have been the victims of war by providing education and job skills training. Her global advocacy efforts also include work with Freedom From Torture, a charity providing torture victims with therapeutic care, and Refuge, a U.K. based charity helping to rebuild the lives of women and children who are survivors of violence and abuse.
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