Empire Award
17th Empire Awards
220px An Empire award
Awarded for	Excellence in cinematic achievements
Presented by	Empire
Country	United Kingdom
First awarded	1996
Last awarded	March 25, 2012 (2012-03-25)
Official website	2012 Official website

An Empire Award is an accolade bestowed by Empire, Britain's biggest selling film magazine, to recognize excellence of professionals in the local and global film industry. The awards are voted for by readers of the magazine and in an annual ceremony, the Empire Awards, the winners are presented with the award which is covered by Empire and sometimes also televised. They were sponsored by Sony Ericsson^[1] between the 8th and the 13th Empire Awards with the exception of the 12th which was without a ceremony,^[2] and since the 14th Empire Awards are sponsored by Jameson Irish Whiskey.^[3]

The first Empire Awards ceremony was held on 1996, to honour outstanding film achievements of the 1995 film season. The most recent ceremony, honouring films in 2011, was held at Grosvenor House Hotel on March 25, 2012.

Empire Awards categories[link]

Award categories as of 2012[link]

• Best Actor: 1996 to present
• Best Actress: 1996 to present
• Best British Film: 1996 to present; In 2002 it was known as "Sky Movies Best British Film"
• Best Comedy: 2006 to present
• Best Director: 1996 to present
• Best Film: 1996 to present
• Best Horror: 2006 to present
• Best Newcomer: 1996 to present; It was known as "Best Debut" from 1996 to 2002; in 2007 it was split to "Best Male Newcomer" and "Best Female Newcomer"
• Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy: 2006 to present; In 2009 it was known as "Best Sci-Fi/Superhero"
• Best Thriller: 2006 to present
• Done In 60 Seconds Award: 2008 to present

Retired awards[link]

• Best British Actor: 1996 to 2005
• Best British Actress: 1996 to 2005
• Best British Director: 1997 to 2001; 2005
• Sony Ericsson Scene of the Year: 2003 to 2007; In 2007 it was known as "Scene Of The Year"
• Sony Ericsson Soundtrack Award: to 2008 - 2009; In 2009 it was known as "Best Soundtrack"

Special Empire Awards[link]

Current special awards[link]

• Empire Hero Award: 2010 to present
• Empire Inspiration Award: 1997; 1999 to 2002; 2004 to 2006; 2008; 2010 to present
• Icon Award: 2006; 2008 to present

Retired special awards[link]

• Actor Of Our Lifetime: 2009 only
• Contribution to Cinema: 2000 only; Outstanding Contribution to British Cinema: 2005 to 2006; Outstanding Contribution To British Film from 2008 to 2010
• Empire Career Achievement Award: 2004 only
• Empire Independent Spirit Award: 2002 to 2005
• Empire Lifetime Achievement Award: 1996 to 2004; 2006;
• Empire Movie Masterpiece: 1999 to 2000
• Heath Ledger Tribute: 2009 only
• Icon of the Decade: 2005 only

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Jameson Empire Awards 2012 official website (current ceremony)
• Empire Awards at IMDb

Martin Freeman
Martin Freeman during filming of Sherlock in 2010
Born	Martin John C. Freeman (1971-09-08) 8 September 1971 (age 40) Aldershot, Hampshire, England
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1997 – present
Awards	BAFTA TV - Best Supporting Actor for Sherlock (2011)

Martin John C. Freeman (born 8 September 1971)^[1] is an English actor. He is known for his roles as Tim Canterbury in the BBC's Golden Globe-winning comedy The Office, John in Love Actually, Arthur Dent in the film adaptation of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Dr. Watson in Sherlock and Paul Maddens in Nativity!. He has been cast in the lead role of Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's two-part adaptation of The Hobbit.^[2]

Early life[link]

Martin Freeman was born in Aldershot, Hampshire, the youngest of five children. His father, Geoffrey, a naval officer, and his mother, Philomena separated when Freeman was a child, and when Freeman was ten, Geoffrey died of a heart attack. Freeman was raised Roman Catholic. As a child, Freeman was asthmatic, and had to undergo a hip operation due to a "dodgy" leg. He was schooled at a Catholic comprehensive before attending London's Central School of Speech and Drama.^[3][4]

In an edition of Who Do You Think You Are? aired on 19 August 2009, he discovered that his grandfather, Leonard Freeman, was a member of the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War II.^[5] Private L W Freeman, a Territorial Army volunteer in the 150(N) Field Ambulance Regiment, was killed in Northern France on 24 May 1940 in a Stuka dawn attack. His unit was evacuated from Dunkirk two days later.

Career[link]

Freeman joined a youth theatre group at 15, but it was not until he was 17 that his confidence in his acting had led to the decision to pursue it as a career.^[3]

Freeman has appeared in at least 18 TV shows, 14 theatre productions, and several radio productions. He is notable for his role as Tim Canterbury in The Office. He also appeared in the sitcom Hardware. Additionally Freeman has appeared in several films, including Sacha Baron Cohen's Ali G Indahouse (2002) and Richard Curtis' Love Actually (2003). As well as his various comic roles, Freeman has also appeared in serious dramatic parts. He began to move into more serious dramatic roles on television with his appearance as Lord Shaftesbury in the 2003 BBC historical drama Charles II: The Power and The Passion. He can also be seen making a brief appearance in the first episode of the second series of This Life. Freeman also starred in the BBC's television series The Robinsons and had a cameo performance in episode 1 of Black Books.

He had a cameo in Hot Fuzz (2007), a film written by Shaun of the Dead writers Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, and had a brief non-speaking role in Shaun of the Dead as Yvonne's boyfriend, Declan. He is in the 2007 film The All Together written & directed by Gavin Claxton. He also appeared alongside Roger Lloyd Pack, Jamie Hogarth and Christopher Mellows in the 2007 Bill Kenwright theatre production of The Last Laugh.

He also features in the video for Faith No More's cover of "I Started a Joke". He has recently covered a few shows on BBC 6 Music. In May 2009 he starred in a comedy, called Boy Meets Girl – a four part drama that charts the progress of characters Veronica and Danny after an accident which causes them to swap bodies.^[6]

He has starred in a 48 hour film project entitled 'The Girl Is Mime'.

Freeman plays Dr. John Watson in Sherlock, the BBC contemporary adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes detective stories. The first episode, "A Study in Pink", was broadcast on 25 July 2010 to critical acclaim. For his performance in the role he won the BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actor, 2011.

Freeman will play Bilbo Baggins, the main character in the two-part Peter Jackson film series The Hobbit.^[7][8]

Personal life[link]

Freeman resides in Hertfordshire with his partner,^[9] actress Amanda Abbington, whom he met on the set of Channel 4’s Men Only in 2000. The couple have a son and daughter,^[3][4] and have since appeared in other productions together, including Picking Up The Pieces, The Debt, The Robinsons and the feature film comedy The All Together.

Freeman is a lifelong fan of Motown music and interviewed Smokey Robinson in an edition of The Culture Show aired in October 2009.^[10]

Freeman is a vegetarian.^[11]

Filmography[link]

Films[link]

Television[link]

Awards and nominations[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Martin Freeman

• Martin Freeman at the Internet Movie Database
• Martin Freeman at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• Martin Freeman Massive, online fan community
• Martin Freeman BBC Radio Gloucestershire interview (feb 2007)
• Boy Meets Girl Interview

Helen Mirren
Mirren at the 83rd Academy Awards in 2011.
Born	Helen Lydia Mironoff (1945-07-26) 26 July 1945 (age 66) Chiswick, Middlesex, England
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1965–present
Spouse	Taylor Hackford (1997–present)
Partner	Taylor Hackford (1986–1997)
Website
Official site

Dame Helen Mirren, DBE (born Helen Lydia Mironoff; 26 July 1945) is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award for Best Actress, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, four Emmy Awards, and two Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Awards.

Early life and family[link]

Mirren was born Helen Lydia Mironoff^[1][2] in Queen Charlotte's Hospital, Chiswick, West London.^[3] Her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov (1913–1980), was of Russian origin, and her mother, Kitty (née Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda Rogers; 1909–1996), was English.^[4] Mirren's paternal grandfather, Colonel Pyotr Vasilievich Mironov, was in the Tsarist Army and fought in the 1904 Russo-Japanese War. He later became a diplomat, and was negotiating an arms deal in Britain, when he and his family were stranded during the Russian Revolution.^[5] The former diplomat became a London cab driver to support his family.

His son, Helen Mirren's father, changed the family name to the Scottish-sounding Mirren in the 1950s and became known as Basil Mirren. 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, East London, and was the 13th of 14 children born to a butcher whose father had been the butcher to Queen Victoria.^[4] Mirren considers her upbringing to have been "very anti-monarchist".^[6]

The first house she remembers living in was in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, when she was two or three years old, after the birth of her younger brother, who was named Peter Basil after his grandfather and great-great-grandfather. Mirren was the second of three children, born two years after her older sister Katherine ("Kate"; born 1942). She later lived in Leigh-on-Sea.

Education[link]

Mirren attended St Bernard's High School for Girls in Southend-on-Sea, where she acted in school productions, and subsequently a teaching college, the New College of Speech and Drama in London, "housed within Anna Pavlova's old home, Ivy House" on the North End Road – which leads from Golders Green to Hampstead, N. London. At age eighteen, she auditioned for the National Youth Theatre and was accepted. By the time she was 20, she was Cleopatra in the NYT production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Old Vic, which led to her signing with the agent Al Parker.^[7]

Theatre[link]

Early years[link]

Her work for the NYT led to Mirren joining the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), 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^[8] in As You Like It in 1968, Julia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona in 1970, and Tatiana in Gorky's Enemies at the Aldwych and the title role in Miss Julie at The Other Place in 1971. She also appeared in four productions, directed by Braham Murray for Century Theatre at the University Theatre in Manchester between 1965 and 1967.^[9]

In 1970 Director/producer John Goldschmidt made the documentary film Doing Her Own Thing about Mirren at the Royal Shakespeare Company. The film was made for ATV and shown on the ITV Network in the UK.

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.

As reported by Sally Beauman in her 1982 history of the RSC, Mirren, while appearing in Nunn's Macbeth (1974) and in a highly publicised letter to The Guardian newspaper, attacked both the National Theatre and the RSC for their lavish production expenditure, declaring it "unnecessary and destructive to the art of the Theatre," and adding, "The realms of truth, emotion and imagination reached for in acting a great play have become more and more remote, often totally unreachable across an abyss of costume and technicalities..." There were no discernible repercussions for this rebuke of the RSC.^[10]

West End and RSC[link]

At the Royal Court in September 1975 she notably played rock star Maggie in Teeth 'n' Smiles, a musical play by David Hare, which was revived at Wyndham's Theatre in May 1976 winning her the Plays & Players Best Actress award, voted by the London critics.

From November 1975 Mirren played in West End repertory with the Lyric Theatre Company as Nina in The Seagull and Ella in Ben Travers' new farce The Bed Before Yesterday ("Mirren is stirringly voluptuous as the Harlowesque good-time girl": Michael Billington, The Guardian, 10 December 1975). At the RSC in Stratford in 1977, and at the Aldwych the following year, she played a steely Queen Margaret in Terry Hands' production of the three parts of Henry VI, while 1979 saw her 'bursting with grace' with an acclaimed performance as Isabella in Peter Gill's otherwise unexceptional production of Measure for Measure at Riverside Studios.

In 1981 she returned to the Royal Court for the London premiere of Brian Friel's Faith Healer. In the same year she also received acclaim for her performance in the title role of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, a production of Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre which transferred to The Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, London. Reviewing her portrayal for The Sunday Telegraph, Francis King wrote: "Miss Mirren never leaves it in doubt that even in her absences, this ardent, beautiful woman is the most important character of the story."

Her performance as Moll Cutpurse in The Roaring Girl at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in January 1983, and at the Barbican Theatre April 1983), "swaggered through the action with radiant singularity of purpose, filling in areas of light and shade that even Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker omitted." – Michael Coveney, Financial Times, April 1983.

After a relatively barren sojourn in the Hollywood Hills, she returned to England at the beginning of 1989 to co-star with Bob Peck at the Young Vic in the London premiere of the Arthur Miller double-bill, Two Way Mirror, performances which prompted Miller to remark: "What is so good about English actors is that they are not afraid of the open expression of large emotions" (interview by Sheridan Morley: The Times 11 January 1989). In Elegy for a Lady she played the svelte proprietress of a classy boutique, while as the blonde hooker in Some Kind of Love Story she was "clad in a Freudian slip and shifting easily from waif-like vulnerability to sexual aggression, giving the role a breathy Monroesque quality" (Michael Billington, The Guardian).

Broadway debut[link]

A further stage breakthrough came in 1994, in an Yvonne Arnaud Theatre production bound for the West End, when Bill Bryden cast her as Natalya Petrovna in Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country. Her co-stars were John Hurt as her aimless lover Rakitin and Joseph Fiennes in only his second professional stage appearance as the cocksure young tutor Belyaev. "Instead of a bored Natalya fretting the summer away in dull frocks, Mirren, dazzlingly gowned, is a woman almost wilfully allowing her heart's desire for her son's young tutor to rule her head and wreak domestic havoc....Creamy shoulders bared, she feels free to launch into a gloriously enchanted, dreamily comic self-confession of love." (John Thaxter, Richmond & Twickenham Times, 4 March 1994).

Mirren was twice nominated for Broadway's Tony Award as Best Actress (Play): in 1995 for her Broadway debut in A Month in the Country, now directed by Scott Ellis ("Miss Mirren's performance is bigger and more animated than the one she gave last year in an entirely different London production", Vincent Canby in the NY Times, 26 April 1995). Then again in 2002 for August Strindberg's Dance of Death, co-starring with Sir Ian McKellen, their fraught rehearsal period coinciding with the terrorist attacks on New York on September 11, 2001 (as recorded in her In the Frame autobiography, September 2007).

National Theatre[link]

Mirren had an unhappy experience at the National Theatre in 1998 when she played Cleopatra to Alan Rickman's Antony. In 2000 Nicholas Hytner, who had worked with Mirren on the film version of The Madness of King George, cast her as Lady Torrance in his revival of Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending at the Donmar Warehouse in London. Michael Billington, reviewing for The Guardian, described her performance as "an exemplary study of an immigrant woman who has acquired a patina of resilient toughness but who slowly acknowledges her sensuality."

At the National Theatre in November 2003 she again won praise playing Christine Mannon ("defiantly cool, camp and skittish", Evening Standard; "glows with mature sexual allure", Daily Telegraph) in a revival of Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra directed by Howard Davies.

“This production was one of the best experiences of my professional life, The play was four and a half hours long, and I have never known that kind of response from an audience ... It was the serendipity of a beautifully cast play, with great design and direction, It will be hard to be in anything better.” (In the Frame, September 2007).

She played the tragic title role in Jean Racine's Phèdre at the National in 2009, in a production directed by Nicholas Hytner. The production was also staged at the amphitheater of Epidaurus on 11 and 12 July 2009.

Selected stage credits[link]

• Cleopatra, Anthony and Cleopatra, Old Vic Theatre, London, 1965
• Cathleen, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Century Theatre, Manchester,England 1965
• Kitty, Charley's Aunt, Century Theatre, Manchester, 1967
• Nerissa, The Merchant of Venice, Century Theatre,Manchester, 1967
• Castiza, The Revenger's Tragedy, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, England, 1967
• Diana, All's Well That Ends Well, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1967
• Cressida, Troilus and Cressida, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, London, 1968
• Hero, Much Ado about Nothing, Aldwych Theatre, 1968–1969
• Win-the-Fight Littlewit, Bartholomew Fair, Aldwych Theatre, 1969
• Lady Anne, Richard III, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1970
• Ophelia, Hamlet, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1970
• Julia, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1970
• Tatyana, Enemies, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, 1971
• Harriet, The Man of Mode, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, 1971
• Title role, Miss Julie, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, 1971
• Elayne, The Balcony, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, 1971
• Isabella, Measure for Measure, Riverside Studios Theatre, London,1974
• Lady Macbeth, Macbeth, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1974, then Aldwych Theatre, 1975
• Maggie, Teeth 'n' Smiles, Royal Court Theatre, London, 1975, then Wyndham's Theatre, London, 1976
• Nina, The Seagull, Lyric Theatre, London, 1975
• Ella, The Bed before Yesterday, Lyric Theatre, 1975
• Queen Margaret, Henry VI, Parts I, II and III, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1977, then Aldwych Theatre, 1978
• Title role, The Duchess of Malfi, Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, England, 1980, then The Roundhouse, London, 1981
• Grace, Faith Healer, Royal Court Theatre, 1981
• Cleopatra, Antony and Cleopatra, Pit Theatre, London, 1983
• Moll Cutpurse, The Roaring Girl, Barbican Theatre, London, 1983
• Marjorie, Extremities, Duchess Theatre, London, 1984
• Madame Bovary, 1987
• Angela, "Some Kind of Love Story," and dying woman, "Elegy for a Lady," in Two-Way Mirror (double-bill), Young Vic Theatre, *London, 1989
• Sex Please We're Italian, 1991
• Natalya Petrovna, A Month in the Country, London, 1994, then Criterion Theatre, New York City, 1995
• Antony and Cleopatra, Royal National Theatre, London, 1998
• Collected Stories, London, 1999
• Lady Torrance, Orpheus Descending, Donmar Warehouse, London, 2000
• Alice, Dance of Death, Broadhurst Theatre, New York City, 2001–2002
• Mourning Becomes Electra, Lyttelton Stage, Royal National Theatre, 2003
• Phedre, National Theatre, 2009
• Also appeared as Susie Monmican, The Silver Lassie; in Woman in Mind, Los Angeles.

Film[link]

Mirren at the 2010 Comic Con in San Diego, 22 July 2010

Mirren has also appeared in a large number of films throughout her career. Some of her earlier film roles include Age of Consent, O Lucky Man!, Caligula, Excalibur, 2010, The Long Good Friday, White Nights, When the Whales Came and The Mosquito Coast. She appeared in Some Mother's Son, Painted Lady, The Prince of Egypt and The Madness of King George. One of her 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. Her favourite film is Teaching Mrs. Tingle, in which she plays sadistic History teacher, Mrs Eve Tingle.^{[citation needed]}

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 Queen (2006), and Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, in The Madness of King George (1994). She is the only actress ever to have portrayed both Queens Elizabeth on the screen.

Mirren's title role of The Queen earned her numerous acting awards including a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, and an Academy Award, among many others. During her acceptance speech at the Academy Award ceremony, she praised and thanked Elizabeth II and stated that she had maintained her dignity and weathered many storms during her reign as Queen. Mirren later appeared in supporting roles in the films National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, Inkheart, State of Play, and The Last Station, for which she was nominated for an Oscar.^[11]

In preparation for her role as a retired Israeli Mossad agent in the film The Debt, Mirren reportedly immersed herself in studies of Hebrew language, Jewish history, and Holocaust writing, including the life of Simon Wiesenthal, while in Israel in 2009 for the filming of some of the movie's scenes. The film is a remake of a 2007 Israeli film of the same name (Hebrew: Ha-khov).^[12]

Television[link]

Mirren is known for her role as detective Jane Tennison in the widely viewed Prime Suspect, a multiple award-winning television drama that was noted for its high quality and popularity. Her portrayal of Tennison won her three consecutive BAFTA awards for Best Actress between 1992 and 1994.

Some of Mirren's other television performances include Cousin Bette (1971); As You Like It (1979); Blue Remembered Hills (1979); The Twilight Zone episode "Dead Woman's Shoes" (1985); 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, she appeared with Laurence Olivier, Alan Bates and Malcolm McDowell in a production of Harold Pinter's The Collection as part of the Laurence Olivier Presents series. She also played Elizabeth I in 2005, in the television serial Elizabeth I, for Channel 4 and HBO, for which she received an Emmy Award. Mirren won another Emmy Award on 16 September 2007 for her role in Prime Suspect: The Final Act on PBS in the same category as in 2006.

Mirren hosted Saturday Night Live on 9 April 2011.^[13]

Awards and recognition[link]

Film awards[link]

Mirren at the 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards

In 1984, Mirren won Best Actress for her role in the film Cal at the Cannes Film Festival and the 1985 Evening Standard British Film Awards. In 1994 and 2001, she was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her roles in The Madness of King George and Gosford Park, respectively. In 1995, she had also been awarded for Best Actress once again in Cannes for playing Queen Charlotte in The Madness of King George.^[14] In 2002, she received the SAG Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for Gosford Park. Mirren is the first female actress to be nominated for three acting performances at the Golden Globe Awards in the same year. She won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Leading Role in the movie drama category for Stephen Frears' The Queen in 2006 (along with two nominations in the Actress in a Mini-series or TV Movie category for Elizabeth I, and Prime Suspect: Final Act). She won both Golden Globes for The Queen and Elizabeth I and also won two SAG awards the same year for the same roles. Mirren is the third actor to win two Golden Globes in the same year, and the first ever to win for both leading roles in TV and film in the same year. She is one of only three actresses (the first was Liza Minnelli in 1973 and then decades later Helen Hunt) to win a Golden Globe, an Oscar and an Emmy for performances given in the same year.

Along with the Golden Globe, Mirren's acclaimed performance in The Queen won her the 2007 Academy Award for Best Actress.^[15] She also received Best Actress awards from the Venice Film Festival, Broadcast Film Critics, National Board of Review, Satellite Awards, Screen Actors Guild and a BAFTA, as well as critics awards from all over the world. Entertainment Weekly recently ranked her Number 2 for Entertainer of the Year for 2006 and also won the award for best actress in film at the new Greatest Britons Awards for her role in The Queen. In 2007, Mirren became an Honorary Patron of the University Philosophical Society at Trinity College Dublin.

She won the Best Actress award at the 2009 Rome International Film Festival for her performance as Tolstoy's wife in The Last Station.^[16]

Academy Award nominations[link]

• Best Actress
  • 2006 – The Queen
  • 2009 – The Last Station

• Best Supporting Actress
  • 1994 – The Madness of King George
  • 2001 – Gosford Park

Television awards[link]

Mirren won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Mini-series or TV Movie in 1997 for her role in Losing Chase. She received two nominations in the Actress in a Mini-series or TV Movie category for Elizabeth I, and Prime Suspect: The Final Act, where she only won the Golden Globe for her title role performance in Elizabeth I. In that same year she won an SAG award for that same role. Mirren also won an Emmy for her role in Elizabeth I in category Lead Actress in a Mini-Series or a Movie in 2006. She had previously won an Emmy twice before, in that same category, in 1996 for her role in Prime Suspect: Scent of Darkness and in 1999 for The Passion of Ayn Rand.^[17]

At the end of a triumphant year of awards for her acclaimed movie performance as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, Dame Helen also collected a 2007 Emmy Television award as Best Actress in a Mini-Series for her performance as Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect: The Final Act. She now has four Emmy awards. This seventh, and apparently concluding instalment, of the Prime Suspect saga portrayed Tennison as an alcoholic destined for retirement. It was screened in the US on the public service network PBS.

Emmy Awards[link]

Awards won are indicated by bold lettering.

• Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie

• 1993 – Prime Suspect 2
• 1994 – Prime Suspect 3
• 1996 – Prime Suspect 4: "Scent of Darkness"
• 1997 – Prime Suspect 5: Errors of Judgment
• 1999 – The Passion of Ayn Rand
• 2003 – The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
• 2004 – Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness
• 2006 – Elizabeth I
• 2007 – Prime Suspect: The Final Act

• Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie

• 2003 – Door to Door

Critics' Circle Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts[link]

Mirren at The Critics' Circle Awards Luncheon in April 2007

Each year, since 1988, The Critics' Circle has presented an award for Distinguished Service to the Arts voted for by all members of the Circle embracing: Dance, Drama, Film, Music, Visual Arts and Architecture. At a celebratory luncheon, on 10 April 2007 in the National Theatre's Terrace Restaurant, the award for 2006 was presented to Dame Helen Mirren.^[18] As David Gritten, chairman of the Film section made clear, the decision to make the award was voted on in November 2006, well in advance of the awards hubbub that surrounded her performance in The Queen. Accepting the award, an engraved crystal rose bowl, Mirren described it as the most useful she has ever received, while reflecting poignantly that this now "might be the last award I will win in my life. It has been a most incredible year. You do the work and then....." Previous recipients include Peter Hall (1988), Judi Dench (1997) and Ian McKellen (2003).

Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire[link]

On 5 December 2003, she was invested as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). When she received the honour, Mirren commented that Prince Charles was "very graceful" but forgot to give her half of the award. Another person had to remind him to give Mirren the star. She also said that she felt wary about accepting the award and had to be persuaded by fellow comrades to accept the DBE. In 1996, she had declined appointment as a Commander of the order (CBE).^[19]

Personal life[link]

Mirren married American director Taylor Hackford (her partner since 1986) on 31 December 1997, his 53rd birthday. The ceremony took place at the Ardersier Parish Church near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands.^[20] The couple had met on the set of White Nights. It is her first marriage, and his third (he has two children from his previous marriages). Mirren has no children and says she has "no maternal instinct whatsoever."^[21]

In the August 2011 issue of Esquire magazine, Mirren said, "I am quite spiritual. I believed in fairies when I was a child. I still do sort of believe in the fairies. And the leprechauns. But I don't believe in God."^[22]

Mirren's autobiography, In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures, was published in the UK by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in September 2007. Reviewing for The Stage, John Thaxter wrote: "Sumptuously illustrated, at first sight it looks like another of those photo albums of the stars. But between the pictures there are almost 200 pages of densely printed text, an unusually frank story of her private and professional life, mainly in the theatre, the words clearly Mirren's own, delivered with forthright candour."^[23]

In 1990, Mirren stated in an interview that she is an atheist.^[24]

In a GQ interview in 2008, Mirren stated she had been date raped as a student and had often taken cocaine at parties during the 1980s.^[25][26] She stopped using the drug after reading that Klaus Barbie made a living from cocaine dealing.^{[25][26][27][28]}

On 11 May 2010, Mirren attended the unveiling of her waxwork at Madame Tussauds London. The figure reportedly cost £150,000 to make and took four months to complete.^[29]

Criticism[link]

In July 2010, during the Anglo-American BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Mirren declared herself to be "embarrassed and mortified at being British" had England defeated the US at football during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. "I was so relieved it was a draw because, you know, if Britain had beaten America, what with BP, which to my mind stands for bloody p***-poor."^[30][30]

This provoked an angry response in the UK, where the tabloid The Daily Mail accused her of being disloyal and cynically playing up to her American audience.^[31]

References in pop culture[link]

• The Mars Volta on their 2008 album The Bedlam in Goliath have a song called "Ilyena" that is named after Mirren.^[32] Mars Volta lyricist/singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala has stated an affinity for Mirren.^[33]

Filmography[link]

Further reading[link]

• Command Performance, a profile of Helen Mirren written by John Lahr in The New Yorker magazine, 2 October 2006
• In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures (autobiography) by Helen Mirren, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2007 ISBN 978-0-297-85197-4.
  • Rather than writing an autobiography Helen Mirren was commissioned by Alan Samson at Orion Books to write about her life in a series of chapters based on pictures from her extensive personal collection of photography and memorabilia. Edited by Chris Worwood, with whom she worked on the Award-winning HBO series Elizabeth, the book covers every aspect of her life from her aristocratic Russian heritage to her days with Peter Hall's RSC company to her Academy Award for The Queen.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Helen Mirren

• Official website
• Helen Mirren at the Internet Movie Database
• Helen Mirren at the TCM Movie Database
• Helen Mirren at the Internet Broadway Database
• Helen Mirren at the MBC Encyclopedia of Television
• Helen Mirren Biography at Tiscali
• The Helen Mirren Appreciation Society, official fan club
• Helen Mirren on Charlie Rose
• Works by or about Helen Mirren in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Helen Mirren collected news and commentary at The Guardian
• Helen Mirren collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Arifa Akbar, "Helen Mirren: The good, the bad and The Queen", (interview), The Independent (London), 27 May 2007
• Kevin Maher, Dame Helen Mirren: I'm an Essex Girl (interview), The Times (London), 12 February 2010
• Morley Safer profile of Helen Mirren on CBS 60 Minutes, 7 January 2007

Tom Hiddleston
Hiddleston at the Avengers Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in NY, April 2012
Born	Thomas William Hiddleston (1981-02-09) 9 February 1981 (age 31) Westminster, London, England
Alma mater	Eton College The Dragon School University of Cambridge RADA
Occupation	Actor
Years active	2001–present
Relatives	Emma Hiddleston (sister)

Thomas William "Tom" Hiddleston (born 9 February 1981)^[1] is an English film, television, radio, and stage actor. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), and he rose to prominence through a number of TV roles and more recently major film roles. He played Loki in the 2011 Marvel Studios film Thor, Captain Nicholls in Steven Spielberg's World War I film War Horse (2011), and also Freddie Page in the British drama The Deep Blue Sea, alongside Rachel Weisz. He played author F. Scott Fitzgerald in the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris (2011). He returned to his role as Loki in The Avengers (2012) and is set to reprise the character again for Thor 2 (2013).

Early life and education[link]

Hiddleston was born in Westminster, London,^[1] to parents Diana Patricia (née Servaes), a former stage manager and arts administrator, and James Norman Hiddleston, a scientist in physical chemistry who was the managing director of a pharmaceutical company.^[2] His father is from Greenock, Scotland and his mother from Suffolk, England.^[3] He is the middle child with two sisters, Sarah (oldest), a journalist in India,^[4] and Emma (youngest), is also an actor. He was raised in Wimbledon, in his early years, and later in Oxford.^[3] When Hiddleston was 13, he boarded at Eton College, at the same time that his parents were going through a divorce. "I think I started acting because I found being away at school while my parents were divorcing really distressing." He went on to act at The Dragon School^[5] in Oxford, then continued on to the University of Cambridge, where he earned a double first.^[6] He graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 2005.

Career[link]

During Hiddleston's second term at Cambridge, he was seen in a production of A Streetcar Named Desire by talent agent Lorraine Hamilton, of Hamilton Hodell. While still doing student plays, he began doing British television, landing parts in Stephen Whittaker’s adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby for ITV^[7] the BBC/HBO co-production Conspiracy, and as Randolph Churchill, the son of Winston Churchill, inthe BBC/HBO drama The Gathering Storm.

On graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Hiddleston won his first film role, playing Oakley in Joanna Hogg’s first feature, Unrelated. He also appeared in the leading role of Edward in Joanna Hogg's second feature, Archipelago, and had leading roles in Declan Donnellan's company Cheek by Jowl's productions The Changeling, and Cymbeline. His Donmar Warehouse credits include Cassio in Michael Grandage's production of Shakespeare's Othello alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ewan McGregor to critical acclaim^[8][9][10] and later Lvov in their West End revival of Chekhov's Ivanov.

His TV credits include Magnus Martinsson in the BBC detective drama Wallander, Bill Hazledine in Suburban Shootout, John Plumptre in the BBC costume drama TV film Miss Austen Regrets and William Buxton in the BBC drama series Return to Cranford.

He is best known for his portrayal of Loki in the 2011 Marvel Studios film, Thor. He was invited to audition by Kenneth Branagh, the film's director, after having previously worked with Branagh on Ivanov and Wallander. "Ken has had a life-changing effect. He was able to say to the executives, 'Trust me on this, you can cast Tom and he will deliver'. It was massive and it's completely changed the course of what is available to me to do. Ken gave me my break."^[11] In the beginning, he originally auditioned for the part of Thor. "I initially auditioned to play Thor. That was what I was being considered for, because I’m tall and blonde and classically trained, and that seemed to be the mold for what Thor was, he was to be a classical character. And it was in my auditions. I owe this entirely to Marvel and their open-mindedness, they saw something that they thought was interesting. They saw some temperament that they liked."^[12] The casting director gave Hiddleston six weeks to bulk up, so he went on a strict diet and gained twenty pounds of muscle. In the end, Branagh decided he was more suitable as the antagonist and cast him as Loki. To prepare for his role as Loki, Hiddleston trained in the Brazilian martial art of capoeira.^[13]

In 2011, he portrayed novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald in writer-director Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. The noble Captain Nicholls in War Horse, a film based on the 1982 novel by Michael Morpurgo, directed by Steven Spielberg. And Freddie Page, a RAF pilot in the British drama The Deep Blue Sea, alongside Rachel Weisz.

He reprised his role as the supervillain Loki in the 2012 movie The Avengers. While filming a scene with Chris Hemsworth, who plays Thor, the film's director, Joss Whedon told the fighting duo that the scene didn't look real enough, so Hiddleston told Hemsworth to really hit him for the fight scene. "I said to Chris, 'Dude, just hit me. Just hit me because I'm protected here and it's fine.' He's like, 'Are you sure?' I was like, 'Yeah, it will look great. Just go for it.'"^[14] Hiddleston is scheduled to reprise his Loki role again in Thor 2, which is set to start filming in August 2012.^[15]

In 2012, he will portray Prince Hal in the TV-movie adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 1 & 2 and Henry V in Henry V. Other scheduled projects include Jim Jarmusch's film Only Lovers Left Alive, set to shoot in 2012,^[16] and the film adaptation of Elliott Chaze's 1953 crime novel Black Wings Has My Angel, co-starring Anna Paquin and Elijah Wood.^[17]

Hiddleston narrated the audio book The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner,^[18] poetry for iF Poems on iTunes,^[19] for the British Museum on the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, and was the voiceover for BBC's documentary on the Galapagos Island.^[20]

Awards and nominations[link]

Awards:

• 2012 Glamour Awards, Man of the Year ^[21]
• 2012 Jameson Empire Awards, Best Male Newcomer, for, Thor ^[22]
• 2012 Richard Attenborough UK Regional Film Critics' Awards, Rising Star Award, for, War Horse, Thor, The Deep Blue Sea, Midnight in Paris and Archipelago ^[23]
• 2009 Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers' Choice Award, Best Supporting Actor in a Play, for, Othello and Ivanov ^[24]
• 2008 Laurence Olivier Award, Best Newcomer in a Play, for Cymbeline ^[25]
• 2007 Ian Charleson Awards Third Prize, for, Othello ^[26]

Nominations:

• 2012 Saturn Awards, Best Supporting Actor ^[27]
• 2012 London Evening Standard British Film Awards, Best Actor Award ^[28]
• 2012 BAFTA Awards, the Orange Wednesdays Rising Star Award ^[29]
• 2012 Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards, Best Ensemble Acting ^[30]
• 2012 SAG Awards, Best Ensemble Acting ^[31]
• 2011 My Cinema Awards, Best Supporting Actor in a Drama, Action or Horror Award ^[32]
• 2010 ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards, Best Supporting Actor ^[33]

Filmography[link]

Hiddleston at a press conference for Thor in April 2011

Film[link]

Theatre[link]

Radio[link]

Video game[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tom Hiddleston

• Tom Hiddleston at the Internet Movie Database