Dame Judi Dench is set to skip the Oscars due to her filming schedule, according to reports.

The British veteran is nominated for the Best Actress award alongside Amy Adams, Cate Blanchett, Sandra Bullock and Meryl Streep for her turn as an Irish mother searching for her adopted son in Philomena.

Unlike her competitors, Dench has been missing from the awards season campaign trail after undergoing a knee replacement operation, and now she is reportedly set to miss out on Hollywood's biggest night.

The actress is currently in India filming the sequel to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and sources suggest the long-haul trip to Los Angeles for the prizegiving would be too much for the 79 year old.

Her daughter, Flinty Williams, also admits she is unsure about her mother's plans, telling Britain's Daily Telegraph, "Honestly, I don't know. She has been hard at work in India making the sequel to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and I am not sure if she is going to fly from there to the States. It has been a few days since we have spoken."

Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, whose studio produced Philomena, recently admitted Dench's health woes have put her at risk of missing out on awards, saying, "Honestly, it's been tough for her, health-wise, and she hasn't done the kind of campaigning the others have.

"Cate Blanchett has had the luxury of being in a lot of places... Amy Adams has been very visible at awards shows and everything else."

Dench has been nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award four times before, for Mrs. Brown, Iris, Mrs Henderson Presents and Notes on a Scandal, while she won the Best Supporting Actress prize for her appearance as Queen Elizabeth I in 1998's Shakespeare in Love.