That Makes Two OBE’s for the Lewis Household
by Julia Pritchard | Daily Mail | November 7, 2017
Actress Helen McCrory beamed with delight on Tuesday as she was awarded an OBE by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.
The Peaky Blinders star, 49, could not contain her joy as she proudly posed after her Investiture ceremony with husband Damian Lewis, and her honour for services to drama in hand. Helen radiates beside Damian as she collected her OBE… after revealing she mistook the invite for an unpaid bill.
The mother-of-two went on to reveal she had almost missed the exciting event – as she had mistaken her invitation letter for an unpaid bill. Â ‘I thought ‘Oh God, he hasn’t paid something again!’
Helen was the picture of sophistication in a striking embroidered dress, just visible beneath her pale pink pleated dress coat.
Sporting minimal face make-up but adding a bright pink lip, Helen drew attention to her radiant complexion as she beamed widely for cameras.
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The brunette first posed alone with her honour held proudly in hand, before she joined husband Damian, who was awarded an OBE in 2014, for further snaps.
While the ceremony itself ran smoothly, Helen did admit that she almost missed out on the award – as she had mistaken her acceptance letter for one of her husband’s unpaid bills.
She told the Press Association: ‘They thought I hadn’t got the letter and I was actually phoned at home to be asked if I was going to be accepting the honour.
‘I hadn’t opened it, I thought it was something else. I thought it was for my husband and thought ‘Oh God, he hasn’t paid something again’.
‘It was sitting in his office, and they said ‘It’s your last day to accept it, would you like to accept it?’ I said ‘My gosh, of course, how fantastic”.
Helen, who is best known for her work in Peaky Blinders, confessed she was thrilled to receive her gong from the monarch – but that the experience had been completely nerve-wracking.
She said: ‘I am so excited, I am so elated. You’re not told until the day who will present it and a gentleman comes and tells you what to do because you think you’re going to know, but of course, you’re so excited you can’t remember anything he’s just said.
‘So he does it again and you think ‘I know how to curtsey’ and then then think ‘Oh no, I don’t, I can’t remember anything you just told me!”
Going on to joke of her profession, she added: ‘I said ‘Thank you very much for coming, Your Majesty, because it means the world to all of us’ and she said ‘What service is it?’ and I said ‘For shouting in the dark, Your Majesty’ and she said ‘Quite right’.’
‘You’re so excited you can’t remember anything!’: Helen confessed she was thrilled to receive her gong from the monarch – but that the experience had been completely nerve-wracking
The actress also revealed she had to work on updating her curtsey – having delivered a more period offering the first time she met the Queen, while rehearsing for a film set in King Louis XIV’s court at Versailles.
She said: ‘I had been rehearsing A Little Chaos with Alan Rickman and had spent the morning with Kate Winslet doing full curtseys and so when I met Her Majesty I went practically prostrate in front of her.
‘And about 10 minutes afterwards a lady said ‘Her Majesty would like to commend you on your curtsey, which hasn’t been seen in court circles for about 400 years’… so I brought my curtsey into the 21st century.’
Having played Cherie Blair in 2006 flick The Queen, who refused to curtsey to the monarch, Helen joked she had stayed well away from her famous character.
 ‘I didn’t do a Cherie of course,’ she added. ‘I stayed away from my Queen performance!’
Helen has been a face in the industry since the early 1990s, and has starred in a number of projects on both stage and screen.
She has starred in a number of productions at the National Theatre, and was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award in 2006 for her role as Rosalind in Shakespeare’s As You Like It.
She also starred as Narcissa Malfoy in the Harry Potter franchise and appeared in Bond film Skyfall, before she was cast as Polly Gray in hit series Peaky Blinders.
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