10 Actors Who Played The Same Character In Completely Different Movies
9. Judi Dench - Queen Victoria
The Character: Queen Victoria
The Movies: Mrs Brown and Victoria & Abdul
Even though she isn’t exactly a Queen Victoria lookalike Dame Judi Dench has played the British monarch two times on the big screen in her career so far in films focusing on the scandalous friendships the royal struck up with two very different men after the death of her beloved husband Prince Albert.
Her first performance came in John Madden’s 1997 drama Mrs Brown and co-starred comedian Billy Connolly as John Brown – the trusted Scottish manservant of Queen Victoria with whom she was rumoured to have a relationship that extended beyond just friendship. Dench’s performance earned her a BAFTA for Best Actress and an Oscar nomination for Best Actress too.
Two decades later Dench returned to the role in Stephen Frears’ 2017 film Victoria & Abdul alongside actor Ali Fazal who played the eponymous Abdul – a young prison clerk from colonial India who travelled to England to become a servant to Queen Victoria who was so taken with him that she appointed Abdul her Indian Secretary.
There were no BAFTAs that time around for Dench, so it’s safe to say her first performance as Queen Victoria made the bigger splash.