Kristin Scott Thomas and Joan Collins Added to the Queen's New Year's Honors List

British actors John Hurt and Kristin Scott Thomas have joined the royal elite, having been named a knight and dame in the Queen’s 2015 New Year’s Honors List. A biannual tradition, the honor recognizes Sir John and Dame Kristin, as they will now be called, for their "services to drama."

Throughout his extensive career spanning more than 50 years, Hurt has received two Academy Award nominations, a Golden Globe Award, and four BAFTA Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement recognition. He is best known for his starring role as John Merrick in the 1980 Joseph Merrick-inspired film The Elephant Man, for which he received a BAFTA Award and Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. Bernard Pomerance's stage play The Elephant Man, also based on Merrick, is now running at Broadway's Booth Theatre and stars Bradley Cooper.

Thomas is best known for her film roles in Four Weddings and a Funeral and The English Patient, which earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination. In 2008, she made her Broadway debut as Madame Arkadina in a revival of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull. She will play Queen Elizabeth II in a new West End production of The Audience in the spring. (The Audience opens on Broadway March 8 at the Schoenfeld Theatre, starring Helen Mirren.)

Broadway veteran Joan Collins (Private Lives) has also been made a Dame in recognition of her charitable work, joining new OBE recipients James Corden and actress Sheridan Smith and CBE recipient Meera Syal, a British comedian, playwright, and actress.

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