Queen of acting: Helen Mirren

Honored at the 2020 Berlinale with a lifetime achievement award, the actress born in 1945 has collected many prestigious prizes over the years. Helen Mirren is shown here in 2007 with her Oscar for her performance in "The Queen." She also obtained Academy Award nominations for her roles in "The Madness of King George" (1994), "Gosford Park" (2001) and "The Last Station" (2009).

Mirren was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her services to drama in 2003 (photo). Even though she once said that her upbringing was "very anti-monarchist," she nevertheless ended up wearing different crowns throughout her career...

Mirren is among the few actors to have achieved the so-called Triple Crown of Acting, a title which describes performers who have won an Academy Award for their role in a film, an Emmy Award for a part in a TV series and a Tony Award for a Broadway performance.

She won one of her Emmys for her performance in "Elizabeth I," a two-part British historical drama from 2005 (pictured, with Jeremy Irons). She has obtained 11 nominations for the US award recognizing the best in television — and won it four times, including for her well-known role as the no-nonsense detective Jane Tennison in "Prime Suspect," which originally ran from 1991 to 2006.

Stephen Frears' 2006 biopic "The Queen" focuses on how the British monarch reacted to the death of Lady Diana in 1997. Mirren's studied portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II won her critical praise and several awards, including an Oscar, a BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Award. Even though the film didn't portray Elizabeth II in a friendly light, the Queen praised Mirren's subtle performance.

By winning the Tony Award for the same role in the play titled "The Audience," the 2013 Broadway version of "The Queen," Mirren joined the ranks of other legendary actors with the Triple Crown of Acting, such as Ingrid Bergman, Al Pacino, Frances McDormand and Jeremy Irons — who will also be in Berlin as head of the film festival's jury.

At the age of 20, Mirren played Cleopatra for the first time in a National Youth Theatre production. It launched her career, as she went on to join the Royal Shakespeare Company shortly afterwards, and the rising star was luridly dubbed "the sex queen of Stratford." She is shown here in a reprisal of the "Anthony and Cleopatra" play in 1998, with the late Alan Rickman.

Mirren also embodied a Roman empress: Milonia Caesonia, the fourth and last wife of emperor Caligula. The kitschy art-porn historical drama "Caligula" from 1979 did not, however, make the most of her acting talent. The film initially received extremely bad reviews, even if it went on to become an underground cult classic. Mirren described it as "an irresistible mix of art and genitals."

In Arthurian legends, the enchantress Morgan le Fay, Arthur's half-sister, is often referred to as the Fairy Queen. Mirren took on the role in John Boorman's historical fantasy "Excalibur" (1981). It's while working on this film that she met actor Liam Neeson, who became her boyfriend in the early 1980s. She then met her future husband, director Taylor Hackford, on another film set in 1985.

The 1994 historical biopic "The Madness of King George" focuses on the power struggle triggered by the deteriorating mental health of Great Britain's George III, a period known as the Regency Crisis of 1788-89. Starring alongside Nigel Hawthorne, Helen Mirren won the Cannes Film Festival award for best actress for her depiction of Queen Charlotte.

Mirren rules once again in the 2019 HBO four part miniseries, "Catherine the Great," in which she portrays Russia's longest-ruling female leader. The 18th-century empress managed to cling on to power following a military coup in 1762. The story even has a link to the Russian aristocratic roots of the actress, whose family name is actually Mironov.

This crown came in 2013: Mirren's legacy was immortalized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, right next to Colin Firth's, who also won an Oscar for portraying a royal in "The King's Speech." Mirren's reaction: "I think it's very good for the British monarchy that, here on Hollywood Boulevard, the King and the Queen are going to actually sleep together, for the rest of history."