Actor: Helen Mirren

Helen Mirren won Best Actress for The Queen, playing Elizabeth II in the week after Diana’s death, and has played the same monarch on stage as well.

She came from the Royal Shakespeare Company and spent the 1970s in difficult work including Caligula, which she has discussed with characteristic frankness.

Prime Suspect on television gave her Jane Tennison, a detective navigating institutional sexism, and it changed what British crime drama could be.

The Long Good Friday, Gosford Park and The Last Station fill out the film work, and she has been notably direct about ageing and the industry.