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Michelle Dockery, who found fame around the globe as “Downton Abbey’s” Lady Mary Crawley, was honored with the first Variety Icon Award for Canneseries at Saturday’s official opening ceremony for the inaugural Cannes TV fest.

Described by Variety’s Stewart Clarke as “an actor at the top of their game during this golden age of scripted television,” Dockery, striking in a one-strap full-length red evening gown, told a packed Palais des Festivals crowd that in the last decade, “pretty well as long as I’ve been doing TV,” television had “transformed enormously.” “I feel extremely fortunate to be part of the international surge in its landscape,” she added.

She had another, more personal, reason for being happy for the Variety Icon Award.

As a teenager Dockery was “obsessed” with television, she confessed on stage in her acceptance speech: “I would sit with my mum and dad, we would watch ‘Prime Suspect,’ starring the great Helen Mirren, Jimmy McGovern’s ‘Cracker,’ and ‘The Jewel in the Crown.’ Those were the shows which inspired me to pursue a career in acting.” (@Variety)