The comeback kids of Bafta crown a vintage year
Homegrown talent leads the acting nominations as Four Weddings pair return after decades-long hiatus
‘My hosting is to say to everybody, “You’re free to say what you want, do what you want, be what you want”’
THE last time Jamie Bell was on the Bafta stage, he was a fresh-faced 14-year-old accepting his best actor trophy for his 2001 Billy Elliot debut.
When Hugh Grant and Kristin Scott Thomas stepped up 23 years ago, they were celebrating their respective wins for Four Weddings and a Funeral.
This year, the British actors join a list of nominees hoping to win their first Bafta trophy in decades, in a remarkable year for home-grown talent.
Bell has been nominated for his role as a young man with an older actress lover in Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool. He goes up against Gary Oldman, who has not clutched the award since 1998, for his much-lauded portrayal of Churchill in Darkest Hour, Daniel Daylewis’s rumoured last acting role in Phantom Thread, and Daniel Kaluuya, star of Get Out and a relative newcomer from London who is also up for the Rising Star prize.
The best actor category, completed by Timothee Chalamet, an American, for Call Me By Your Name, is dominated by four out of five nominees being British, the best home-grown representation in the Baftas since 1993.
Speaking after the nominees were announced in London yesterday, Amanda Berry, the chief executive of Bafta, confirmed that eight of the 20 performance nominees were British, adding: “I think it’s always wonderful when British films do well at the Baftas.”
She added: “I love the fact that Jamie Bell last won for Billy Elliot in 2001.” Even then, if Bell is announced the winner next month, he will still not have enjoyed as long a gap between awards as other nominees. Grant and Scott Thomas are up for best supporting roles in Paddington 2 and Darkest Hour respectively, 23 years after taking home a Bafta trophy for Four Weddings and a Funeral in 1995.
Scott Thomas has received three other nominations in the meantime, while Grant was up for best supporting actor last year for Florence Foster Jenkins.
Annette Bening, nominated for her role in Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, last won in 2000 for American Beauty, while Oldman, the bookies’ favourite this year, won awards for filmmaking and screenwriting for Nil By Mouth in 1998. Oldman said yesterday: “This is my second Bafta nomination as an actor; the recognition means so much, and especially more so not merely for the distinguished company I now find myself in with my fellow nominees, but most especially for the privilege of playing Winston Churchill, which it truly was.”
Bell said: “This is beyond words. Thank you Bafta and congratulations to all the nominees.”
Grant, taking the nomination in true thespian spirit, tweeted: “Bafta! My darlings! Cravat clutch! Gasp! Most humble thanks. A solitary tear.”
For the Bafta leading actress award, Sally Hawkins is the only British star to receive a nod, for The Shape of Water.
She will take on Saoirse Ronan, the Irish actress, for Lady Bird, Annette Bening for Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, Frances Mcdormand for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing , Missouri and Margot Robbie for I, Tonya.
The Shape of Water, a fantasy romance directed by Del Toro, leads the nominations at the 2018 awards with 12 nods, including best film.
Other films nominated for the award include Call Me By Your Name, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
This year’s ceremony will be hosted by Joanna Lumley, who takes over from Stephen Fry to become the first woman to single-handedly host the awards in more than 20 years.
Lumley, pictured left, when asked about hosting the event in a controversial year likely to see countless stars reference the Hollywood sexual harassment scandal and current affairs, suggested she would welcome frank acceptance speeches.
“My hosting is to say to everybody: ‘You’re free to come up and say what you want, do what you want, wear what you want, be what you want’,” she said.
The winners will be announced at this year’s Baftas ceremony on Feb 18, to be held at the Royal Albert Hall.