Judi Dench

Since playing Ophelia in Hamlet at The Old Vic Theatre 55 years ago, Judi Dench has garnered wide popular and critical admiration for a career marked by outstanding performances in both classical and contemporary roles. She has won numerous major awards including an Academy Award, ten BAFTA Awards and a record six Laurence Olivier Awards for work on both stage and screen, and in recognition of her many achievements, she received an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1970, became a DBE (Dame of the British Empire) in 1988, and in 2005 was awarded a Companion of Honour. In 2011 she also received the Japan Arts Association’s prestigious Praemium Imperiale Laureate Award for Film an Theatre. This year Dame Judi has won critical acclaim for her performance on the West End stage in Peter and Alice, directed by Michael Grandage and starring opposite Ben Whishaw, and this followed two hugely successful films in 2012: the India-set comedy The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, directed by John Madden, and
Skyfall, directed by Same Mendes, in which Dame Judi reprised her legendary role as M opposite James Bond for the seventh time.
Her other iconic film roles include Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown, for which Dame Judi won a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Academy Award, and Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare In Love, for which she received an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress. She has received Academy Award nominations for performances in four other films: Lasse Hallstrom’s Chocolate, for which she was also nominated for a Golden Globe; Iris, directed by Richard Eyre, for which she also won a BAFTA Award; Mrs. Henderson Presents, directed by Stephen Frears, for which she was further nominated at the BAFTAs and the Golden Globes; and Notes on a Scandal, directed by Richard Eyre, which also brought her BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations.