Mirren was born Ilyena Vasilievna Mironov in a corridor of the maternity wing of Queen Charlotte's Hospital, Hammersmith in West London. Her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov (1913-1980), was of Russian origin, and her mother, Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda (née Rogers; 1909-1980), was English.

Mirren's paternal grandfather, Pyotr Vassilievich Mironov, a Russian nobleman, tsarist colonel and diplomat, was negotiating an arms deal in Britain and was stranded there, along with his family, during the Russian Revolution. Mirren's great-great-great-great-grandfather was the Russian field-marshal Mikhail Kamensky, one of the heroes of the Napoleonic wars.

Her father called himself Basil and changed the family name to Mirren in the 1950s. He played the viola with the London Philharmonic before World War II and later drove a cab and was a driving-test examiner, before becoming a civil servant with the Ministry of Transport. Mirren's mother was from West Ham, London and was the thirteenth of fourteen children born to a butcher whose father had been the butcher to Queen Victoria. Mirren considers her upbringing to have been "very anti-monarchist".

Following appearances on stage during her school years at St Bernard's High School for Girls in Westcliff-on-Sea, Mirren's first starring role was in 1965 as Cleopatra for the National Youth Theatre. This led to her joining the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing Castiza in Trevor Nunn's 1966 staging of The Revenger's Tragedy, Diana in All's Well That Ends Well in 1967, Cressida in Troilus and Cressida and Phebe in As You Like It in 1968, Julia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona in 1970 and the title role in Miss Julie at The Other Place in 1971.

In 1972-73 Mirren worked with Peter Brook's International Centre for Theatre Research, and joined the group's tour in North Africa and the US which created The Conference of the Birds. Returning to the RSC she played Lady Macbeth at Stratford in 1974 and at the Aldwych Theatre in 1975.

Mirren has made numerous appearances in an array of films. Some of her earlier film appearances include O Lucky Man!, Caligula, Excalibur, 2010, The Long Good Friday, White Nights, and The Mosquito Coast. After those appearances she received roles in Belfast-born director Terry George's film Some Mother's Son, which was about the 1981 Hunger Strikes in Northern Ireland, opposite Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan, Painted Lady, The Prince of Egypt and The Madness of King George. One of Mirren's other film roles was in Peter Greenaway's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, as the eponymous thief's wife, opposite Michael Gambon.

Mirren continued her successful film career when she starred more recently in Gosford Park with Maggie Smith and Calendar Girls where she starred with Julie Walters. Other more recent appearances include The Clearing, Pride, Raising Helen, and Shadowboxer. Mirren also provided the voice for the supercomputer "Deep Thought" in the film adaptation of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

During her career, she has portrayed three British queens in different films and television series: Elizabeth I in the television series Elizabeth I (2005), Elizabeth II in the film The Queen (2006), and Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, in The Madness of King George (1994).

Her role in The Queen gained her numerous awards including a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, and an Oscar. During her acceptance speech at the Academy Award ceremony, Mirren praised and thanked Elizabeth II and stated that she had maintained her dignity and weathered many storms during her reign as Queen.

Mirren has frequently appeared nude on film as far back as her first film Age of Consent, and was over 50 when she appeared nude in the film Calendar Girls and on the cover of the Radio Times 5-11 October issue in 1996.

Mirren is well-known for her role as detective Jane Tennison in the well-known Prime Suspect, a television drama that ran for seven series. The role won her three consecutive BAFTA awards for Best Actress between 1992 to 1994. Other acclaimed television performances include Cousin Bette (1971), As You Like It (1979), Blue Remembered Hills (1979), Losing Chase (1996), The Passion of Ayn Rand (1999) where her performance won her both the Emmy and the Golden Globe, Door to Door (2002), and The Roman Spring of Mrs.

Stone (2003). In 1976 Mirren appeared opposite Laurence Olivier, Alan Bates and Malcolm McDowell in the episode The Collection of the Granada television series Laurence Olivier Presents. She also played Elizabeth I in 2005, in the television series Elizabeth I, for Channel 4 and HBO, where she received an Emmy for her performance. Mirren won another Emmy on 16 September 2007 for her role in Prime Suspect: The Final Act on PBS in the same category as in 2006.