Guest post by Abby Dan
With 41 years of the Olivier Awards with Mastercard on the books, we thought we’d check in to see what some past winners are up to now.
Who’s stayed on the boards, who moved to film and never came back, and who retired? Read on to catch up with some familiar – and not so familiar – names and faces!
If you’re interested in more Olivier Award winners, revisit our 10 Superstar Olivier Award winners feature!
Virginia McKenna
Virginia McKenna was the first winner of the Best Actress in a Musical (previously known as Best Performance in a Musical) Award in 1979, for her portrayal of Anna Leonowens in The King And I, opposite Yul Brynner. She was already well known for her role in the film Born Free, for which she won a Golden Globe in 1966.
Although McKenna has continued to appear onstage and on screens large and small since her win, she is also a well-respected conservationist. She and her late husband Bill Travers started the Born Free Foundation in the mid-1980s to protect threatened individual animals and species in the wild.
Kerry Ingram
Kerry Ingram at the Olivier Awards 40th Anniversary Summer Party (Credit: David Jensen)
One of the four young actresses awarded the 2012 Olivier for Best Actress in a Musical for playing Matilda, Kerry Ingram has become perhaps the most recognisable of the quartet.
Ingram hasn’t been back to the West End since her win, but you may know her from her role on Game of Thrones as Shireen Baratheon, Stannis’ daughter who suffers from Greyscale (and parents who largely ignore her – familiar?). In a move Matilda would approve of, Shireen taught a few different characters in the Seven Kingdoms how to read. There’s more to Shireen’s story, but we’re not in the business of spoilers.
Martine McCutcheon
Michael Ball and Martine McCutcheon at the 26th Olivier Awards in 2002 (Photo: Nigel Barklie)
McCutcheon, whom most people knew as EastEnders’ Tiffany Mitchell and who had also had success on the music charts, won an Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical 15 years ago for portraying Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. The following year, she hit the big screen in Love Actually.
Since her win, she’s become a mum, a novelist, a fitness instructor (on DVD), and been off and on the telly, including as a regular panellist on Loose Women. Her fourth studio album, “Lost and Found”, will be released later this year.
Kenneth Branagh
Kenneth Branagh backstage at the Olivier Awards 2017 with Mastercard (Photo: David Levene)
We’re not sure if this is a familiar name to anyone out there, but this young bloke won the Olivier Award for Best Newcomer in a Play in 1982.
He’s only won the Special Recognition Award (earlier this year) since then, racked up a whole load more Olivier nominations, claimed a handful of BAFTAs and been recognised with every award under the sun. Clearly the Olivier voters were onto something.
Imelda Staunton
Imelda Staunton, winner of the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for Gypsy in 2016 (Photo: Pamela Raith)
While we’re on the subject of people who’ve spent a lifetime at the Oliviers: did you know that Imelda Staunton was nominated for her first Olivier back in 1982, the same year Branagh won his first award? She didn’t take a Larry home until 1985, for her work in A Chorus Of Disapproval and The Corn Is Green.
Since then, she’s won three more and been nominated a total of eleven times. Staunton is one of those rare celebs who balances a hugely varied screen career with regular returns to the stage. Of course, she just finished her acclaimed run in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and we can’t wait to see what her next project will be.
Lorna Want
Lorna Want collects the Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical Award at the Olivier Awards 2015 with MasterCard (Photo: Alastair Muir)
This one’s pretty easy: since taking home the 2015 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical for her portrayal of Cynthia Weil in Beautiful – The Carole King Musical, Want… stayed right there!
Having gone on maternity leave earlier this year, she won’t be returning to the Aldwych Theatre stage before the show departs the West End for its UK tour this summer, but has said that she considered it an honour to play such an “iconic” woman as Weil – and her longevity in the role speaks for itself.
Bertie Carvel
Bertie Carvel in The Hairy Ape at The Old Vic in 2015 (Photo: Manuel Harlan)
Carvel won the 2012 Olivier for Best Actor in a Musical for originating the role of Miss Trunchbull in Matilda (after being nominated four years earlier for his work in Parade at the Donmar Warehouse – talk about range!).
Since then, he has dabbled in stage and screen, including starring as Jonathan Strange in the BBC adaptation of the novel “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell” and as Yank in The Hairy Ape at The Old Vic in 2015. He has also become a director since his Olivier win, at the helm of Strife, at the Minerva Theatre in Chichester last year, and is currently starring in Ink at the Almeida Theatre.
Shuler Hensley
Shuler Hensley and Nancy Opel in Paradise Found at the Menier Chocolate Factory in 2010 (Photo: Catherine Ashmore)
The only American in the cast of the National Theatre’s Hugh Jackman-led production of Oklahoma!, Hensley took home the 1998 Olivier for Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical as Jud Fry.
Hensley has been busy on and off Broadway since then, in roles as far-ranging as the Monster in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein and as a 600-pound man in the off-Broadway play The Whale, and he has appeared in many US television shows and films like Van Helsing and The Legend Of Zorro. Unfortunately for us, Hensley hasn’t brought his talent back across the pond since 2010.
James Corden
James Corden at the Olivier Awards event in New York in 2012 (Photo: Anita & Steve Shevett)
Are we cheating? We are cheating. The famous Mr. Corden hasn’t actually won an Olivier, though he was nominated in 2013 for his work in One Man, Two Guvnors and won basically every other award that year for his star turn as Francis Henshall.
But since then, he’s been missing-in-action from the stage! He’s been busy, we suppose, starring in that little film version of Into The Woods, hosting his late night chat show in Los Angeles, and inventing Carpool Karaoke and Crosswalk Musicals. What’s clear is the funnyman loves to sing, and we’d all love to see him back on stage in the West End.