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
Judi Dench In his review of the film, James Berardinelli from "ReelViews" remarked that he felt that Dench's character served no more "useful purpose than to give [her] an opportunity to appear in a science-fiction movie". She followed "Riddick" with a more traditional role in Charles Dance's English drama "Ladies in Lavender", also starring friend Maggie Smith. In the film, Dench plays one half of a sister duo and takes it upon herself to nurse a washed up stranger to health, eventually finding herself falling for a man many decades younger than she. The specialty release garnered positive reviews from critics, with