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Tony Awards 2015: Helen Mirren and Carey Mulligan among the British hopefuls

Bradley Cooper is also nominated for his lead role in The Elephant Man

Wednesday 29 April 2015 07:39 BST

Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth I in Peter Morgan's The Audience (AP)

Helen Mirren has been nominated for a Tony award for her performance as the Queen in The Audience.

The actress, who won an Oscar playing the monarch in The Queen, is nominated for the best actress in a play award along with fellow British stars Carey Mulligan and Ruth Wilson.

The Audience, written by Peter Morgan, is inspired by the private weekly meetings between the Queen and Britain's prime ministers - 12 in all - over her six-decade reign.

It has been a critical and commercial success in both London and New York

She said: "It is a honour to be nominated and to become a part of the grand tradition of American theatre. I am very lucky that I speak American. Albeit in the play with a very British accent. It is a very exciting season on Broadway, with many great plays, musicals, and performances, so just to be a part of that is a thrill."

Famous people and the actors who have played them

Show all 23

1/23Famous people and the actors who have played them

Famous people and the actors who have played them

Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs...

Kutcher played the US entrepreneur who brought the world the iPod in 2013's 'Jobs'.

AP

Famous people and the actors who have played them

...and the real CEO of Apple

The real Steve Jobs died in 2011 from respiratory arrest. He has been described as the 'father of the digital revolution' and the 'master evangelist of the digital age'. Shame 'Jobs' received decidedly mixed reviews with Kutcher's portrayal much criticised as superficial.

AP

Famous people and the actors who have played them

Helen Mirren as HRH Queen Elizabeth II...

Mirren won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance as Queen Elizabeth II in 2007's 'The Queen'. Stephen Frears' film depicts the aftermath of Princess Diana's death.

AP

Famous people and the actors who have played them

...and England's real monarch

'The Queen' received widespread acclaim, with Mirren invited to dinner at Buckingham Palace after the film's release. The English actress was unable to attend due to filming commitments in Hollywood.

Getty Images

Famous people and the actors who have played them

...and the real World War II codebreaker

Codebreaker Alan Turing relaxes with friends before his Bletchley Park days during the Second World War.

Susannah Ireland

Famous people and the actors who have played them

David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King...

Oyelowo won critical praise for his role as the civil rights activist in Selma, despite being snubbed by the Oscars for his performance.

Paramount Pictures

Famous people and the actors who have played them

...and the real civil rights activists

US Baptist minister and activist Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in 1968.

Rex

Famous people and the actors who have played them

Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking...

Redmayne won the Best Actor Oscar at the 2015 Academy Awards for playing the famed physicist in The Theory of Everything.

Universal

Famous people and the actors who have played them

...and the real theoretical physicist

Stephen Hawking is renowned in the world of science for his work on the theory of time.

Getty Images

Famous people and the actors who have played them

Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles...

Foxx won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance as blind rhythm and blues musician Ray Charles in 2004's 'Ray'.

Famous people and the actors who have played them

...and the real soul legend

Charles was planning to attend the premiere of 'Ray' but died several months beforehand of liver disease.

Jean-Pierre Muller/AFP/Getty Images

Famous people and the actors who have played them

Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher...

Streep won the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal as Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 2011's 'The Iron Lady'. Her performance was widely-acclaimed and considered one of her finest.

20th Century Fox

Famous people and the actors who have played them

...and the real Iron Lady

Thatcher did not watch 'The Iron Lady' so had no comment to make on Streep's presentation of her. Her children Mark and Carol were unimpressed, saying the film sounded like 'some left-wing fantasy' prior to its completion.

Fox Photos/Getty Images

Famous people and the actors who have played them

Naomi Watts as Princess Diana...

Watts took on the title role of the Princess of Wales for 2013's 'Diana' about the last two years of her life. The film was slated by critics, with The Mirror writing that 'Wesley Snipes in a blonde wig would be more convincing' as Diana than Watts. Ouch.

Famous people and the actors who have played them

...and the real Princess of Wales

Diana, Princess of Wales died in a Paris car crash in the summer of 1997. What she would have made of Watt's performance in 'Diana' is a question best left unanswered.

John Stillwell/PA

Famous people and the actors who have played them

Lindsay Lohan as Elizabeth Taylor...

Lohan played Taylor in TV movie 'Liz and Dick' about the Hollywood icon's torrid relationship with Richard Burton

Reuters

Famous people and the actors who have played them

...and the real iconic actress

'Liz and Dick' was panned by critics with comments including 'campy and overwrought' and 'an epic of pathetic miscasting'.

Famous people and the actors who have played them

Daniel Day Lewis as Abraham Lincoln...

Day Lewis won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of the former US president in 2012's 'Lincoln'. The film centres on Lincoln's efforts in January 1985 to pass the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery.

Lincoln

Famous people and the actors who have played them

...and the real former US president

'Lincoln' was warmly received by critics, with reviews including phrases such as 'the most remarkable movie Steven Spielberg has made' and 'one of the finest historical dramas ever committed to film'.

AP

Famous people and the actors who have played them

Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf...

Kidman won the Best Actress Oscar for her role as post-War author Virginia Woolf in 2002's 'The Hours'. The film was highly-acclaimed and also won the Best Picture Oscar.

Famous people and the actors who have played them

...and the real 'Mrs Dalloway' author

Woolf was not alive to see the film, having committed suicide by drowning in 1941. But she might well have been impressed, with journalists describing the film as 'deeply moving' and 'amazingly faithful'.

Famous people and the actors who have played them

Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote...

Hoffman, who died in February 2014 from a drugs overdose, won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of the 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' writer in 2005's 'Capote'.

AP

Famous people and the actors who have played them

...and the real 'In Cold Blood' author

Capote died from liver cancer and drug intoxication in 1984 aged 59. 'Capote', and Hoffman's performance in particular, were praised by critics.

Getty Images

Wolf Hall star Ben Miles is nominated for the best actor award for his role as Thomas Cromwell in the play based on Hilary Mantel's best-selling novels.

He is shortlisted alongside stars including Elephant Man star Bradley Cooper.

Bradley Cooper as John Merrick in The Elephant Man (AP)

The Tony Awards will be presented at a ceremony on Sunday June 7 which will be hosted by Alan Cumming and American actress Kristin Chenoweth.

Dame Helen also faces competition from Mad Men star Elizabeth Moss and Geneva Carr on the shortlist.

Her co-star Richard McCabe, who plays Labour prime minister Harold Wilson, is nominated for the award for an actor in a featured role in a play, alongside Nathaniel Parker who plays King Henry VIII in Wolf Hall, nominated for best play.

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, which started life at the National Theatre, has six nominations, including best play and best performance by an actor in a leading role in a play for Alex Sharp.

David Hare's Skylight gets seven nominations including nods for Mulligan and director Stephen Daldry. Two of its stars, Bill Nighy and Matthew Beard, are nominated for awards for actors in a leading role and a featured role respectively.

Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan in Skylight (Press handout)

Writer and comedian John O'Farrell is nominated for best book of a musical for his work on Something Rotten and Sting is shortlisted for best original score for his musical The Last Ship despite it closing after a run of just three months.

(Press Association)

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