Career: Dench made her professional debut with the Old Vic Company before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1961, and has frequently worked on stage ever since. She became a household name in the 1980s thanks to sitcom A Fine Romance, for which she won a Bafta. She's also won the award for Four in the Morning, Talking to a Stranger, Iris, The Last of the Blonde Bombshells, Shakespeare In Love (for which she picked up an Oscar too), A Handful of Dust, Mrs Brown and A Room With a View. Other notable productions include Chocolat, Notes on a Scandal, J Edgar, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its sequel, and several Bond movies, including Skyfall, in which she bowed out as M.

Career: After graduating from Rada, he made his West End debut in Another Country and enjoyed success in Northern Ireland with his appearances in three Belfast-set Play for Today productions. He then joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. Despite some big hits, he disliked the organisation's structure and so set up his own theatre company. TV series Fortunes of War made him a star in the UK, but it was his film version of Henry V that catapulted him to global fame. Other films include Peter's Friends, Dead Again, Love's Labours Lost, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. More recently, he's appeared in TV dramas Conspiracy, Shackleton, 10 Days to War and Wallander, and the movies Rabbit-Proof Fence, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and My Week with Marilyn. He also directed the revamp of Sleuth, The Magic Flute and had a huge hit with blockbuster Thor.