Dame Helen Mirren gets European film award

Dame Helen will revisit her role as the Queen on stage next year

Oscar-winning actress Dame Helen Mirren is to receive an honorary award for achievement in world cinema from the European Film Academy.

"It was discovering the immense diversity of European film-making that gave me an enduring love and respect for the artform," Dame Helen said.

"This award is... a meaningful honour. I would be proud to be counted as an actor in the European tradition."

She will be a guest at the European Film Awards on 1 December in Malta.

Dame Helen won the Academy Award for best actress for her role in The Queen in 2007.

She was nominated for an Oscar again in 2010 for her role as Tolstoy's wife in The Last Station and is tipped to pick up another nomination next year for playing Alfred Hitchcock's wife opposite Sir Anthony Hopkins in Hitchcock.

Her earlier credits include The Long Good Friday, The Cook, The Thief, The Wife and His Lover, The Madness of King George, Gosford Park and Calendar Girls.

It was recently announced that the 67-year-old star would revisit her Oscar-winning role as Queen Elizabeth II in writer Peter Morgan's new play The Audience.

Billy Elliot director Stephen Daldry will direct the West End production next February at London's Gielgud theatre. The Audience will depict the weekly meetings between the Queen and some of the 12 prime ministers of her reign.