You know that old, mostly played adage: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
In the case of the absolutely blisteringly magnificent Dame Helen Mirren, she’s found her role, and is just about done sweeping all the awards for playing it.
Mirren today took out a Tony Award for her role in The Audience, in which she once again stepped into the shoes of Queen Elizabeth II. In doing so, Mirren became the first person in more than 30 years to win both an Oscar and a Tony for portraying the same character.
Mirren picked up the Best Actress Academy Award back in 2006 for playing Lizzie in The Queen. Today she took out the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play for her work in The Audience – the Broadway production of the play that originated in London’s West End in 2013.
Mirren also now becomes the only person in history to have scored an Oscar, a Tony, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, and an Olivier Award for portraying the same character. In fact, if by some miracle she finds a way to not only win a Grammy Award, but to do it in character as the Queen, she’ll be the only person in history to score a complete EGOT by playing British Monarchs, having also picked up an Emmy in 2006 for her portrayal of Elizabeth I in the TV miniseries of the same name.
The last time an actor won both an Oscar and Tony for the same character was in 1984, when Lila Kedrova picked up the Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical Tony Award for her role as Madame Hortense in the 1983 Broadway revival of Zorba, a role for which she also won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the 1964 film, Zorba the Greek.
Shining bright like the literal beacon of Godly light that no so much walks but shimmers across the Earth’s surface that she truly is, Mirren accepted the award in typically gracious style on stage at New York‘s famous Radio City Music Hall earlier today.
“The foundation upon which I stand is built – beautifully built – by an elegant … play by Peter Morgan, an elegant theatrical production by Stephen Daldry, an elegant and imaginative set by the great Bob Crowley, the stage management team who are certainly not elegant, a crew who are stupendous, a dresser who is a rock, producers who rock, and of course an incredible cast of British and American actors who make the Atlantic look like a little creek you can just kind of pop across. So thank you, very much. “
“This is an unbelievable honour. I’m so thrilled and thank you, very much.”
In accepting the award, Mirren also cheekily acknowledged her director husband, Taylor Hackford.
“Baby, this is for you, and you know why. That’s nothing rude, incidentally.”
YASSSS. GET. IT. HELEN.
Photo: Kena Betancur via Getty Images.
via SMH.
