Helen Mirren, Peter Morgan Win Chicago Film Critics Awards

Stage and screen star Helen Mirren has been named Best Actress by the Chicago Film Critics Association for her role as Elizabeth II in The Queen, while the film’s author, playwright Peter Morgan, picked up the group’s award for Best Original Screenplay.

Mirren, last seen on Broadway in Dance of Death, is the clear front-runner for the Academy Award, having won all of the major critics’ awards for her work. She is nominated for the Golden Globe for the role, and also picked up two other Globe nominations for her TV work in Elizabeth I and Prime Suspect.

Morgan is also the author of the London stage hit Frost/Nixon, which will reportedly come to Broadway in April. He also received a Golden Globe nomination for The Queen and is considered a strong contender for the Academy Award.

Other Chicago winners included the film The Departed as Best Picture, along with its director, Martin Scorsese, and screenwriter William Monahan, and actors Forest Whittaker, Sasha Baron Cohen, Jackie Earle Haley, and Rinko Kikuchi.