Emily Watson will receive the honorary Richard Harris award at the 2025 British Independent Film Awards (Bifas).
Watson will receive the prize at the Bifa ceremony at London’s Camden Roundhouse on Sunday, November 30.
The award is presented by the Harris family, in the name of their late father Richard Harris, the Irish actor who died in 2002.
“I’ve had the great privilege of spending time with Jared [Harris, Richard’s son] as an actor and raconteur, hearing thrilling wild tales of his dad and the force that he was,” said Watson. “I’m so grateful to the Harris family for thinking of me. Truly an honour. Thank you Bifa.”
“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,” said a statement from Damian, Jared and Jamie Harris, Richard’s children.
Watson received Oscar and Bafta nominations for her first film role, in Lars Von Trier’s 1996 Breaking The Waves opposite Stellan Skarsgard.
Since then she has regularly appeared in acclaimed independent titles, receiving a second Oscar nomination for Hilary And Jackie in 1998 – a performance for which she won the best actress Bifa; and working with filmmakers including Paul Thomas Anderson, Robert Altman and Charlie Kaufman.
She recently starred alongside Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley in Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet as Mary Shakespeare, mother to Mescal’s William Shakespeare.
Previous winners of the Richard Harris award include Samantha Morton, Riz Ahmed and Daniel Day-Lewis.
The Bifa nominations were announced on November 3, with Akinola Davies Jr’s My Father’s Shadow leading the way with 12. Winners in the craft categories were then unveiled on November 20, with Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza’s Warfare leading the way with three prizes, plus the already-announced best ensemble performance award.
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