Welcome to The Helen Mirren Archives, your premiere web resource on the British actress. Best known for her performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company, "Prime Suspect" and her Oscar-winning role in "The Queen", Helen Mirren is one of the world's most eminent actors today. This unofficial fansite provides you with all latest news, photos and videos on her past and present projects.  Enjoy your stay.
Celebrating
10 years
on the web
Oct
24
2017

CBS Films has released the first teaser trailer for Helen Mirren’s spooky “Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built.” The supernatural thriller is based on the life of eccentric heiress Sarah Winchester, who was convinced that she and her family were haunted by the souls killed by the family’s infamous rifle. Her real-life obsession led to the round-the-clock construction of an enormous 160-room mansion in San Jose, California, designed to keep these evil spirits at bay. The Winchester Mystery House still stands today in northern California and has been named one of the “Most Haunted Places in the World” by Time Magazine. The Winchester Mystery House is one of California’s original and most popular historic attractions. Since opening to the public in 1923, the house has welcomed nearly 12 million people from around the world. Following a medium’s advice, Sarah built a massive house in Northern California to appease the spirits. For the next 38 years, she never stopped building believing that if she continued, she would live forever, and if she stopped, she would die, which she eventually did in 1922 at age 82. The trailer can be also found in the video archive while screencaptures have been added to the photo gallery.

Oct
24
2017

Update and words courtesy JoBlo: The last word we brought you guys on the upcoming Spierig Brothers (“Jigsaw”) haunted house flick “Winchester” starring Helen Mirren and Jason Clarke was when we told you the film was moving up its release date and changing its title. Yes, “Winchester” will now be known as “Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built” and will be released on February 2nd, 2018. Below you will find an all-new still from the film featuring Mirren and Clarke and below that you can check out the film’s teaser poster which boats the killer tagline “Terror is Building”. Classic. Total classic. “Winchester” is written and directed by Michael Spierig & Peter Spierig and stars Helen Mirren, Jason Clarke, Sarah Snook, and Angus Sampson.

Inspired by true events. On an isolated stretch of land 50 miles outside of San Francisco sits the most haunted house in the world. Built by Sarah Winchester, (Academy Award®-winner Helen Mirren) heiress to the Winchester fortune, it is a house that knows no end. Constructed in an incessant twenty-four hour a day, seven day a week mania for decades, it stands seven stories tall and contains hundreds of rooms. To the outsider it looks like a monstrous monument to a disturbed woman’s madness. But Sarah is not building for herself, for her niece (Sarah Snook) or for the brilliant Doctor Eric Price (Jason Clarke) whom she has summoned to the house. She is building a prison, an asylum for hundreds of vengeful ghosts, and the most terrifying among them have a score to settle with the Winchesters…

Oct
14
2017

According to Variety, Lionsgate and CBS Films have moved up Helen Mirren’s haunted house movie by three weeks to Feb. 2 and retitled the film, which had been “Winchester,” as “Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built.” Mirren stars as firearms heiress Sarah Winchester along with Jason Clarke, Sarah Snook, and Angus Sampson. Siblings Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig are directing from their own script. Producers are Tim McGahan and Brett Tomberlin. Winchester was convinced that she was haunted by the souls killed at the hands of the Winchester Repeating Rifle. After the sudden deaths of her husband and child, she threw herself into the 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week construction of an enormous mansion designed to keep the evil spirits at bay. Construction at the Winchester mansion in San Jose, Calif., went on continuously from 1884 to 1922 as the original farm house grew into the world’s most unusual labyrinth-mansion (24,000 square feet built at a cost of $5 million), featuring 160 rooms; 2,000 doors; 10,000 windows; nine kitchens; 13 bathrooms; and 47 stairways and fireplaces. “Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built” will open two days before Super Bowl LII against Paramount’s Cloverfield movie.

May
10
2017

According to The Hollywood Reporter, CBS Films will release Winchester, starring Helen Mirren, on Feb. 23, 2018. The period supernatural thriller is inspired by the real-life tale of Sarah Winchester, the eccentric heiress to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company fortune who spent her life constructing an enormous mansion in San Jose, California, complete with secret passages and trap doors, in order to keep at bay what she thought were the angry spirits of the people killed by her family’s firearms. In the film, Sarah Winchester is visited by a skeptical San Francisco psychiatrist (Jason Clarke) who discovers that her obsession may not be so insane after all. Today, the Winchester Mystery House is a well-known tourist attraction. Construction on the mansion commenced in 1884. Sarah Snook and Angus Sampson also star in the movie, which is directed by Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig. Tim McGahan and Brett Tomberlin produced.

May
07
2017

A spotlight is shining on one of the South Bay’s most mysterious landmarks with the production of a movie set at the Winchester House. Helen Mirren stars in “Winchester Mystery House,” a historical thriller about real-life rifle heiress Sarah Winchester. Winchester was famously convinced she was haunted by the souls of those killed by the guns that made her family rich. While some of the movie has already been filmed in Australia, on Friday, Mirren was shooting scenes at the actual house in San Jose. When asked what it was like filming in the real house, Mirren said with a laugh, “Far out as we used to say in the olden days. It was fantastic.” This week, the movie crew is shooting in one of the 160 rooms in the mansion. They recreated a larger version the house to use as a set in Australia because some of the spaces in the Winchester House were just too small for shooting. A first look photo of Mirren from the production was recently released. It reveals a striking resemblance between the actress and the historical figure she plays. “Yes, it’s rather frightening! And I don’t think Sarah was [frightening] actually, in the original photograph,” said Mirren. “She’s actually got a mysterious little smile; a Mona Lisa like smile on her face.” The picture is the only known photograph of Sarah Winchester. “This house is a manifestation of Sarah Winchester, and I think in that sense it’s haunted,” said Mirren. Shooting at the house is expected to go well into Friday night and is scheduled to wrap on Saturday. “Winchester Mystery House” is set to be released in early 2018.

Apr
28
2017

A first look image of Helen Mirren as eccentric firearms heiress, Sarah Winchester has emerged online, with Mirren looking eerily scary in her Victorian costume reminiscent of the Queens grandmother, Queen Mary. Winchester tells the story of the eccentric firearm heiress, Sarah Winchester who believed she was being haunted by the souls of people killed by the Winchester repeating rifle. After the sudden deaths of her husband and child, she threw herself into the 24/7 construction of an enormous mansion designed to keep the evil spirits at bay. A sceptical San Francisco psychiatrist soon learns her obsession may not be insane. In an interview with People Magazine Mirren divulged she didn’t actually believe in ghosts; “I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do believe people can be haunted, and Sarah Winchester is a haunted person. That was the appeal in the role.” The film which is currently in production and directed by Daybreakers Michael and Peter Spierig will be shot at the actual Winchester mansion in San Jose, California. The Spierigs say Winchester tells a different sort of ghost story. Michael Spierig says the heiress, who died in 1922, “was an intelligent woman and a little misunderstood,” while Peter Spierig went on to say in the same interview: “Sarah Winchester is quite a remarkable woman, and the idea of her being just a crazy person who was haunted by ghosts is not the full story. Helen Mirren, in particular, I think is great in portraying that … It’s about a woman who is deeply troubled by the violence of the rifle and what she inherited. She’s trying to come to terms with that.”

Sep
13
2016

Jason Clarke is moving in with Helen Mirren in the thriller Winchester. Mirren will play Sarah Winchester, the eccentric heiress to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company fortune, who spent her life constructing an enormous mansion, the famed Winchester Mystery House, complete with secret passages and trapdoors, in order to keep at bay what she thought were the angry spirits of the people killed by her family’s firearms. Clarke will play skeptical San Francisco psychiatrist Eric Price, who is sent to the home to evaluate Winchester’s mental health, only to discover she may have been right to be concerned. Predestination helmers Michael and Peter Spierig will direct Winchester from a screenplay they wrote with Tom Vaughan. Production will begin in March 2017, with filming taking place on location at the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California, and in Australia.

May
14
2016

The Cannes film market is doing great things for Helen Mirren. After the earlier announcement of “The Leisure Seeker”. According to Deadline, Mirren is finalizing a deal to play Sarah Winchester, the conflicted multimillionaire heiress to the Winchester Arms fortune in “Winchester”. The supernatural thriller will be helmed early next year by Daybreakers helmers Michael Spierig & Peter Spierig, based on the world famous Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, CA. Winchester’s husband and child died suddenly, and she became convinced she had been cursed by the legal legacy of the “gun that won the West.” A medium sent her to San Jose in 1884 to begin a massive 38-year 24/7 construction of a 24,000-square foot, 160-room Gothic mansion. The Spierigs wrote the most recent draft of the script after Tom Vaughan wrote the first draft. The film is set for financing by Diamond Pictures and Bullitt Entertainment, and territories will be sold here in the Cannes market. It was developed by Imagination Design Works, which owns the rights to the house and is squarely involved, meaning the film will be the first to shoot on the premises of the actual home that Time Magazine called one of the “Most Haunted Places in the World.” You can read more about the film’s background over at Deadline.