Emily Watson will receive the Richard Harris Award at this year’s British Independent Film Awards (BIFAs).
The English actress burst onto screens with an Oscar-nominated performance in Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves (1996), opposite Stellan Skarsgård. The role swiftly catapulted her to the top of director wish lists and Watson soon worked on Jim Sheridan’s The Boxer with Daniel Day-Lewis, Alan Parker’s adaptation of Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes and in the critically acclaimed whodunnit Gosford Park (2001).
Watson earned another Academy Award nomination for her role as the tragic cellist Jacqueline du Pré in Anand Tucker’s Hilary & Jackie, for which she also won a best actress BIFA and a slew of other nods. In 2002, she starred alongside Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love (2002), Paul Thomas Anderson’s foray into romantic comedy. Her third and fourth BIFA nominations came in 2005 for her performance in Richard E. Grant’s autobiographical debut feature Wah-Wah and in 2022 for God’s Creatures.
Last year, Watson nabbed the Berlin Silver Bear best supporting performance award for her captivating portrayal of the formidable Mother Superior of the Magdalene Laundries in Tim Mielants’ Small Things Like These. She has in recent years picked up Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for HBO miniseries Chernobyl, as well as a starring role in Dune: Prophecy.
In 2025, she reunited with Cillian Murphy and Mielants in drama Steve and stars as Mary Shakespeare next to Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley in Chloe Zhao’s hotly anticipated Hamnet.
“I’m delighted and deeply honoured to be receiving this award,” said Watson. “I’ve had the great privilege of spending time with Jared [Harris] as an actor and raconteur, hearing thrilling wild tales of his dad and the force that he was. I’m so grateful to the Harris family for thinking of me. Truly an honour. Thank you BIFA.”
Introduced in 2002, the Richard Harris Award —presented in memory of the late Harry Potter star —recognizes an outstanding contribution by an actor to British film. Daniel Day-Lewis, Samantha Morton, Riz Ahmed, Kristin Scott Thomas, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Julie Walters, Stephen Graham and Sophie Okonedo are among past recipients.
Harris’ sons Damian, Jared and Jamie added: “Emily’s first film was Lars von Trier’s epic Breaking the Waves, which is like saying the first mountain she climbed was Everest. It was a fearless and devastating performance and was rightly recognised with multiple honours, and her first Oscar nomination.”
“Since then, there have been a succession of Emily Watson performances that have again rightly been acknowledged with nominations, honours and awards, including a BIFA,” they said. “Emily is too young to be called a national treasure, but any performance of hers is a cultural event and she enhances the quality of everything in which she appears. She rightly takes her place alongside the past recipients of the Richard Harris Award.”