Who is up for a Bafta?

It’s the most glittering night in the British film calendar

ALL eyes will be on the Royal Opera House in London tonight as Stephen Fry hosts the 67th Briitish Academy Film Awards.

Leading the charge for the famous BAFTA masks is the ground-breaking Gravity, with 11 nominations including Best Film, Outstanding British Film, Director and Original Screenplay. American Hustle and 12 Years A Slave are close behind with 10 nominations each.

Dame Judi Dench has become the most nominated actress to date for Philomena, while the man who wrote the film is still “dumbfounded” to have been rewarded with his first.

Sunday Post Film Editor Darryl Smith runs the rule over the hopefuls and tracks Steve Coogan’s unlikely journey up the red carpet.

In 1981 Steve Coogan opened an envelope, the contents of which suggested he wouldn’t amount to much.

Schoolboy Steve had failed his English O-level — and he didn’t do any better when he re-sat the exam again the following year.

But tonight, at a glittering, starstudded ceremony in London, the contents of an envelope will tell us if Steve has been voted the best scriptwriter in Britain over the past 12 months.

And in two weeks’ time we’ll find out if he’s the best in the world. “I failed my English O-level twice and now I’ve got an Oscar nomination,” said Coogan of the accolades that have come his way this year. “It’s way beyond anything we hoped for when we started the film.” That film is Philomena and the journey started in

2010 when the Manchester-born star read a newspaper article written by former BBC foreign correspondent and government spin doctor, Martin Sixsmith.

It told the story of Irishwoman Philomena Lee, abandoned by her family when she became pregnant as a teenager, whose son was sold for adoption by the nuns who had put a roof over head.

Philomena moved to England and kept the existence of her son a secret for 50 years until enlisting journalist Sixsmith, with whom they shared a mutual friend, to help search for him.

“What captured my imagination was a photo of Martin next to Philomenaena on a bench,” recalled Coogan. “Martin was a journalist, an intellectual, middle- class, Oxbridge-educated man who had got to know this retired, workingclass, Irish nurse. And they struck me as an odd couple.”

Eyeing the part of Sixsmith for himself, Coogan wrote down the names of the actresses he’d like to play the title role. Top of that list was Judi Dench and he nervously visited her at her home in Sussex to show her his script.

“I called her ‘Dame Judi’ until she told me to stop,” remembered Steve of the meeting. Judi served Steve tea and sandwiches, agreed to take on the role and has also been rewarded with a BAFTA and Oscar nomination.

“It’s bizarre that I helped Judi to an Oscar nomination,” smiles Steve. “She was great to work with. There’s no real front to her and she’s got a wonderful sense of humour. Most of the time we talked about anything but what we were doing: it was a heavy subject matter and so it was nice to talk about anything other than the script. It was very relaxed.

“There were one or two times when I took a picture of us on set, and e-mailed it to everyone I know. It is Judi Dench, after all.”

But the most important woman attached to the film for Steve was the one whose story was being played out on screen.

“Philomena is very pleased with the film,” he says of the retired nurse. “She’s seen it a couple of times and the first time she was nervous, as anyone would be when you watch someone else portray elements of your life, but the second time she did enjoy it.

“I chatted with her a lot during the writing process and what came across was her positivity: she wears her experiences quite lightly. She really does have a glass half full outlook and I wanted the film to reflect that.”