The two British actresses are both nominated for best actress Tony Awards

Janet McTeer and Harriet Walter bookend the couch in McTeer's dressing room. The two British actresses are both nominated for best actress Tony Awards, and while they're both pleased by the honor, neither likes the idea of competing.

"It's not nice. It's no fun," McTeer says. "But we would, both of us, absolutely adore if Phyllida got one, because she's a genius."

She's, of course, talking about Phyllida Lloyd, the director of the critically acclaimed Broadway drama "Mary Stuart."

Walter plays England's Queen Elizabeth I and McTeer the title role of Mary, Queen of Scots. Their competition, come Sunday's awards ceremony, will be Hope Davis and Marcia Gay Harden of "God of Carnage" and Jane Fonda of "33 Variations."

McTeer has already picked up this year's Drama Desk Award for her portrayal of the doomed Mary, and she has a Tony for her performance in "A Doll's House," in 1997.

The 48-year-old actress received an Oscar nomination for 1999's "Tumbleweeds," but decided not to pursue a big-time Hollywood career then because she wanted to focus on being a very private person with a very happy private life.

Also, her breakthrough came late by Hollywood's harsh standards — she was in her late 30s. "They just give those kind of leading roles to somebody pretty and younger and whatever," observes McTeer, who can be seen this week in HBO's "Into the Storm" as Churchill's wife, Clemmie.

Walter has appeared extensively in England with both the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, but sporadically in films — 2006's "Babel" and 2007's "Atonement" among them.

"I do regret I haven't shown what I can do in terms of versatility on-screen. ... And now there's the ageism," Walter says.

Walter got into acting not because she's — get this — the niece of Christopher Lee, Count Dracula of those Hammer Horror films two generations ago, and more recently Count Dooku in the "Star Wars" prequels and Saruman in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. It's because she was inspired by the original "The Parent Trap" (1961), starring Hayley Mills.

Both actresses quickly dispense with the notion that there might be offstage enmity since they are so phenomenal in portraying a clash of strong-will queens.

"Nobody would ask us that if we were men," McTeer says.

"It's happened the other way around, when you play great lovers and you can't stand the guy," Walter says.

They both laugh, then McTeer wonders, "Has that happened to you? That's never happened to me."

Walter answers, "It happened to me once, and it was deeply ironical and not very fun."

When did it happen?

"Way back. Someone will do the math," says Walter, who, though fiftysomething, isn't about to serve up her vintage in a silver chalice.

And they both laugh again.

A little later, both talk about some of the play's serious, mostly political, resonances, and Walter suggests they're different from when she and McTeer first did the Peter Oswald adaptation of Friedrich Schiller's classic play in London's West End.

"In 2005, we would have been thinking of Bush and Cheney and Blair, and all those people," she says. "We were thinking about the cooking up of terror in order to justify very sledgehammer reactions to crack nuts.

"And this time around, I'm thinking very much of Obama's inauguration address, when he talked about ... the offsetting of security and freedom."

In the play, Elizabeth has one adviser arguing for security, while the other says not to sacrifice her integrity.

"Let's hope that integrity can win the day," Walter says. "It's not going to solve every problem in the world, but it's going to give spiritual hope to people that emotional intelligence can win, sometimes, over the masculine values of hard warfare and hard currency."

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