A romance with a rocky start. Helen Mirren and Taylor Hackford have been together for more than 30 years, but their first encounter didn’t go smoothly.
The Oscar winner and the Ray director met in 1985 while Hackford was working on the movie White Nights, but Mirren wasn’t impressed when her future husband kept her waiting for an audition. “It was a strange way to meet Helen, because she is a lovely person,” the California native told AARP The Magazine in September 2006. “But she didn’t hold back her fury.”
After they got to know each other, however, the Queen actress came around, in part because of how Hackford interacted with his sons. “I have to say that the thing I loved most about Taylor was his absolute, total commitment to his children,” the Emmy winner told the outlet. The Bukowski writer shares son Rio (born in 1970) with first wife Georgie Lowres and son Alexander (born in 1979) with second wife Lynne Littmann.
Mirren, for her part, has said that she never wanted her own biological children. “It was not my destiny,” she told British Vogue in February 2013. “I kept thinking it would be, waiting for it to happen, but I never did, and I didn’t care what people thought.”
The U.K. native also wasn’t totally sold on marriage in her younger years, but meeting Hackford changed her mind. “We got married in the end because we realized that we were going to be together forever,” Mirren told AARP The Magazine in November 2016. “We got married, ultimately, for legal reasons more than anything else. Estate planning and other complicated things like that. And our families, we sensed, wanted us to be married. I always said I have nothing against marriage; it just wasn’t to my taste, like turnips. It took me a very long time to come around to acquiring the taste. I just had to meet the right turnip.”
Keep scrolling for Mirren and Hackford’s complete relationship timeline:
1985
The duo met on the set of Hackford’s film White Nights, in which Mirren played Galina Ivanova. The pair wouldn’t collaborate on another movie for 25 years.
Mirren and Hackford started dating in 1986 after initially not hitting it off. “We were together more or less when I first met him,” the Red star said during a 2016 episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “Except, not when I first met him. I didn’t like him at all when I met him.”
December 1997
The twosome tied the knot on New Year’s Eve, which also happens to be Hackford’s birthday. After the ceremony, they spent the night in a supposedly haunted castle in Scotland. Mirren later recalled thinking she saw a ghost at 3 a.m. before realizing she was seeing the lights of cars from the road. “It wasn’t a ghost!” she joked to British talk show This Morning in January 2018. “It’s never a ghost!”
February 2007
Hackford accompanied Mirren to the 79th Academy Awards, where she took home her first Oscar for playing Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen.
June 2010
The pair’s second film collaboration, Love Ranch, premiered in theaters.
June 2015
Hackford supported Mirren at the Tony Awards, where she picked up a trophy for playing the late British monarch again in the play The Audience.
March 2021
Mirren explained that the coronavirus lockdowns of 2020 helped her and Hackford’s relationship feel more “normal” after years of traveling for work. “It’s been really great to just sort of have what most people have,” she told The Telegraph at the time. “It’s been a wonderful way for the two of us to bond, in a weird way. I think it’s been a very bonding experience.”
September 2021
The couple announced plans to collaborate on their third film together, Sniff, which is set to star Al Pacino, Morgan Freeman and Danny DeVito.
April 2022
Hackford’s son Rio died at age 51 after a battle with cancer. “His life showed us how to live in generosity and community,” Mirren and her husband said in a joint statement at the time. “He shared his life’s journey with so many who now mourn him, and at the same time, celebrate their fortune in knowing him.” They also encouraged the public to get tested for uveal melanoma, the rare cancer that caused Rio’s death.
December 2022
The pair attended the premiere of Mirren’s show 1923 in Los Angeles.
August 2025
Though Mirren loves her husband unconditionally, she doesn’t anticipate working with him on another project any time soon.
“I don’t really like collaborating with Taylor, quite honestly,” she told People. “I love watching him work. I love being with him as he’s planning, as he’s developing, as he’s filming. But I want my work to be separate from him.”
Mirren added, “It works better that way, although we have worked together, but it’s an anomaly really.”
Still, Mirren is grateful for any time she gets to spend with Hackford amid their busy schedules.
“I love having him by my side when he is by my side,” she continued. “And I love being on my own when I’m on my own. And he allows that. And likewise, I allow him.”
She joked, “Incidentally, that’s only to do with professional work. If I wasn’t by his side and someone else was, I’d be rather pissed off about that.”
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