Helen Mirren actors to achieve the “Triple Crown of Acting”, joining the ranks of legends including Ingrid Bergman‚ Dame Maggie Smith, and Al Pacino. In 1998, Mirren played Cleopatra to Alan Rickman's Antony in "Antony and Cleopatra" at the National Theatre. The production received poor reviews; "The Guardian" called it "plodding spectacle rarely informed by powerful passion", while "The Daily Telegraph" said "the crucial sexual chemistry on which any great production ultimately depends is fatally absent". 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
Ladies in Lavender in French-speaking Canada. Both Judi Dench and Maggie Smith were nominated for Best European Actress at the European Film Awards. Dench was nominated for the ALFS Award for British Actress of the Year by the London Film Critics Circle. The film was positively received by the critics. In his review in "The New York Times", critic Stephen Holden wrote: [Dench and Smith] sink into their roles as comfortably as house cats burrowing into a down quilt on a windswept, rainy night... This amiably far-fetched film... heralds the return of the Comfy Movie (increasingly rare nowadays), the cinematic equivalent of a