International music and acting stars Damon Albarn, David Oyelowo, Idris Elba and Imelda Staunton have received honours by the Queen. Here’s a look at their career.
Damon Albarn
Blur frontman Damon Albarn has been awarded an OBE for services to music.
The singer-songwriter, composer and musician rose to fame when he formed a band in 1988 with his friends Graham Coxon, Alex James and Dave Rowntree. The band was renamed Blur in 1990 after signing to a record label.
With hits including Song 2, Beetlebum and Parklife, Blur helped create the Britpop genre, fiercely competing with rival band Oasis in the charts.
In 1998, despite continuing to write, record and perform music with Blur, the 47-year-old founded virtual band Gorillaz with illustrator and designer Jamie Hewlett.
Together they created animated band members Murdoc Niccals, Noodle, 2D and Russel Hobbs, who went on to rival Blur’s success – with bestselling albums Gorillaz and Demon Days notching up millions of sales. Their single Dare reached the top of the charts, while Feel Good Inc made the top two.
Blur helped create the Britpop genre
In December Albarn, who was born in London and raised in Essex, opened his musical, wonder.land, at the National Theatre in London – reworking Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland into a story about the digital age. It has received mixed reviews, gaining only two stars in the Daily Mail, the Guardian, the Express and the Evening Standard – although the Telegraph called Albarn’s score “often richly suggestive”.
This is his second collaboration with theatre director Rufus Norris, who also worked with him on the opera Doctor Dee in 2011, based on the life of Elizabethan scientist Doctor Dee.
This followed his 2007 production Monkey: Journey to the West, in which he and Hewlett adapted the Wu Cheng’en novel for the stage.
But Blur fans could rest easy as the band was not sidelined, and in April this year they released their first studio album in 12 years, The Magic Whip, which became their sixth consecutive album since 1994’s Parklife to top the British charts.
Starting in June, the band played gigs from Portugal to China to Australia, as well as headlining at Hyde Park, where they played a career-spanning set including 23 songs. During the performance, Albarn handed out ice creams to the crowd.
He has also been working on the fifth Gorillaz album, which is expected in 2016. In an interview with Rolling Stone in October, he said: “So far, it’s really fast and it’s got quite a lot of energy. I’ve been stuck on piano, somewhere off Broadway, for years now. I want to go somewhere completely opposite of that.”
David Oyelowo
Selma actor David Oyelowo said receiving an OBE for services to drama feels like a “full-circle moment”.
The Oxford-born actor, who has received a Golden Globe nomination for his role in the acclaimed HBO drama Nightingale, recalled how at 18, the Prince’s Trust gave him a grant of £325 so he could join a youth theatre production that his parents could not afford.
He said: “That production set me on the path to becoming an actor. To be honoured by the Queen in this way, having been aided by her son’s charity feels like a beautiful full-circle moment.”
In a review of Nightingale, the New York Times described his performance as “nothing less than amazing.”
In the race for the 2015 Academy Awards, many felt Oyelowo had been snubbed after he failed to receive a nomination for his role as Martin Luther King Jr in Selma.
Oyelowo revealed in an interview with The Independent that Hollywood star Brad Pitt had been equally unimpressed that he had not been nominated.
The 39-year-old may be one of Hollywood’s leading talents but he began in the UK, performing in theatre before landing a part in TV spy drama, Spooks.
He played MI5 officer Danny Hunter from 2002 to 2004, and took supporting roles in films such as Lincoln, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Paperboy, Jack Reacher and The Butler.
The actor is a patron of the TriForce Creative Network, which supports and empowers people from diverse backgrounds.
August also saw the announcement that he would narrate the new James Bond novel, Trigger Mortis, by Anthony Horowitz.
He followed in the footsteps of other actors who have narrated Bond novels, including Kenneth Branagh, Hugh Bonneville, Tom Hiddleston and Rosamund Pike.
The 2016 Golden Globes will see him go head-to-head with fellow Brit and Luther star Idris Elba in the best performance by an actor in a limited series or motion picture made for television category.
Idris Elba
Luther star Idris Elba has described his OBE for services to drama as “beyond special”.
The actor said: “Awards and honours come in all shapes and sizes and all as significant as the other. But this is beyond special as it comes from the Queen and her country, and I couldn’t be more proud for receiving this right now. What a year. On me head son!”
The OBE caps a memorable year for the 43-year-old Londoner, which has seen him receive two Golden Globe nominations for his roles in the hit BBC drama Luther and Netflix’s Beasts of No Nation.
Elba has also been the subject of speculation that he is next in line to play James Bond.
Anthony Horowitz, who wrote the latest 007 novel, Trigger Mortis, was quoted in the Daily Mail describing Elba as “too street” for Bond. The author later apologised, writing on Twitter: “I’m really sorry my comments about Idris Elba have caused offence. That wasn’t my intention.”
Elba rose to fame for his role as Russell ‘Stringer’ Bell in HBO’s gritty series The Wire. He received praise for his portrayal of former South African president Nelson Mandela in the 2013 film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.
Elba – along with David Oyelowo, David Harewood, Lenny Henry and Meera Syal – has spoken out about the representation of ethnic minorities on television.
He told the Press Association earlier this year the UK was “moving in the right direction” regarding diversity in TV roles, but said there is still a lot of work to do.
“People are aware of the issues that are faced. It’s one of these problems that won’t get fixed overnight but I think it’s progressively getting better.”
Acting aside, Elba has a successful music career and is a well-respected DJ. He opened for Madonna on her Rebel Heart tour in Germany this year and has performed at the Glastonbury festival.
He also owns his own production company, and in 2015 launched a clothing range with Superdry.
Imelda Staunton
After years of hard graft on the West End stage and on film sets across the world, Imelda Staunton got a promotion from OBE to CBE.
The actress, 59, was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2006, but was upgraded to Commander as she was honoured for services to drama.
In an interview earlier this year, she said of the OBE: “I just wish my mum had been alive to see it. She would have been so thrilled.”
Born in North London to a hairdresser and a labourer, Staunton joined the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada) at the age of 18. Her classmates included actors Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall and Juliet Stevenson.
After six years in repertory theatre, she moved on to roles at the National Theatre – where she started gaining attention, earning Laurence Olivier Award nominations for best actress in a musical and most promising newcomer of the year in theatre for her performance in The Beggar’s Opera in 1982.
Over the following years, Staunton has picked up 10 Laurence Olivier Award nominations and won two – the gong for best actress in a musical for Into the Woods (1991) and Sweeney Todd (2011).
She’s a consummate actress
It was during a production of Guys and Dolls at the National Theatre in 1982 that she met her husband Jim Carter, who is best known for playing butler Mr Carson in Downton Abbey.
This year Staunton stayed close to her West End beginnings as she trod the boards at the Savoy Theatre in London. She plays the part of Momma Rose in the revived musical Gypsy, playing the pushy mother of burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee.
Dame Angela Lansbury, 89, who is the only other person to have played the character on the London stage when it originally opened in 1973, gave her seal of approval – saying: “She’s a consummate actress and extraordinarily well able to carry the vocals.”
The show received rave reviews, with the Guardian and Telegraph giving it five stars. Theatre critic Dominic Cavendish called it an “unrepeatable chance to witness Staunton give one of the performances of her career”.
Staunton has not shied away from film roles. Many will know the actress from the Harry Potter films, where she played the evil Dolores Umbridge who temporarily took over as headmistress of wizarding school, Hogwarts.
She also drew critical acclaim for starring in the 2004 film Vera Drake, which earned her a number of nominations and awards – including the Bafta award for best actress in a leading role.