Bafta backstage: eight highlights from the British film awards

BBC News

17-02-2025

With two major musicals in the awards race this year, it was only right that host David Tennant opened the Bafta Film Awards with a tune of his own. The Scottish star kicked off proceedings with a storming rendition of The Proclaimers' 500 Miles, featuring contributions from Selena Gomez, Colman Domingo, Anna Kendrick, Hugh Grant and Camila Cabello.The energy remained high throughout the ceremony, which saw Conclave and The Brutalist take the most prizes with four each. The winners list in fullConclave and The Brutalist win big at the BaftasBackstage, the stars were in equally good spirits, even if a few of them were jet-lagged, hungry, and remarking on how heavy the Bafta trophy is to carry around.Here are eight highlights from the winners' room:
1. Mikey Madison took Robert De Niro's advice too seriously
When Anora star Mikey Madison collected the best actress award, she started by admitting to the audience that she hadn't prepared a speech.Backstage, she jokingly blamed this on Robert De Niro, whom she recently appeared with on The Graham Norton Show. "I just wish that I'd had a better speech," she said."I was on a talk show and Robert De Niro told me not to write a speech and I thought, I should probably listen to him. And I forgot to thank so many important people."
Madison was overwhelmed but overjoyed with the recognition from Bafta."I think I'm a little disassociated right now," she says, "I love making movies, and being an actress is my dream, and for my film to be recognised like this is incredibly special."I don't know if I'll ever fully grasp the magnitude of being in a room like that, full of my idols, incredible creatives who I admire so much."
2. Wallace and Gromit directors proud of 'Anton Deck'
Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl won two prizes for its producer Richard Beek and directors Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham. The trio brought their famous characters along with them to the ceremonyCrossingham reflected on the fact that stories about a cheese enthusiast and his loyal but long-suffering dog always seem to go down so well in the US, despite the films firmly rooted in UK culture."It is remarkable that our very Britishness is embraced in America," he told journalists.He highlighted one particular reference in Vengeance Most Fowl: the TV presenter in the film is called Anton Deck, a reference to Geordie duo Ant & Dec."There are some jokes, like Anton Deck, which are very British. In the American screenings, there was complete silence apart from one Brit guffawing in the corner."But we're very proud of that, we stick to our guns. Apart from one or two very specific gags like that, it seems to be embraced."And even if they're laughing at us, not with us, if they're laughing, we're still happy about that."
3. Jesse Eisenberg is embracing the UK
Jesse Eisenberg, who won best original screenplay for A Real Pain, walked into the winners' room carrying his Bafta and asking journalists: "Am I expected to hold this heavy thing the whole time?"After being reassured he was allowed to put it down as he answered questions, he reflected on the fact that the screenwriting prizes he's won for A Real Pain have both been in the UK."The other award I won for this was the London Film Critics prize, so I must be living the wrong country," he joked."My background is playwright, and when one of my plays transferred to the West End it was far more popular. I don't know what it is, maybe I'm a novelty here and in America I'm boring."Eisenberg was also asked about his relationship with co-star Kieran Culkin, who won best supporting actor. But, he said, it's not as close as people might imagine."In terms of our dynamic, I'll text him today and say, 'hey you won the Bafta, I'm so proud of you'. And then three weeks later my phone will buzz and it'll be [Culkin saying]: 'Hey, I just got this, thanks'.""That's the closeness with which you imagine we live."
4. Zoe Saldaña enjoyed 'jumping into the unknown'
Zoe Saldaña continued her awards season sweep of the best supporting actress category with another win at Bafta, despite the recent controversies faced by her film Emilia Pérez.Backstage, she reflected on her biggest number in the Spanish-language musical, El Mal, which is also up for best original song at the Oscars. "Not getting in my own way was the challenge," she said of shooting it. "Sometimes you can become very heady about something and you overthink it."What you have to do is trust the process... Rehearsing the dance was about reconnecting with a part of me I had missed so much but I had since let go of for more than 20 years."Reconnecting with that, dusting off all those cobwebs and jumping into the unknown was what needed to happen."Asked about the importance of performing the musical in Spanish, she replies: "It's my first language, I was spoken to first, sung to first, in Spanish."We love we live, we fight, we work, in Spanish. And my art has [previously] only lived in a very English way. So that yearning to connect my culture with my art was meaningful to me."
5. Warwick Davis thought he was being scammed
Warwick Davis was the recipient of this year's Bafta Fellowship, the British Academy's highest honour."It's very overwhelming, this whole thing," he said. "You win the award and then you have to talk to loads of people, feeling very shiny." (Everyone was feeling sweaty backstage by this point.)Asked about the moment he heard he was this year's winner, Davis said: "I was on the toilet when I found out!"[Bafta] notified me by email, and I do most of my administration work on the toilet. I might call it paperwork but then you'd get the wrong idea," he jokes."Then I got an email from Bafta saying I'd won the fellowship, and I got all excited, and then it suddenly dawned on me, is this a fake email? Some sort of scam?"So I clicked on the email address, and it really was Bafta. Then I finished up at the loo, you probably didn't need that detail, and then went and celebrated with the kids."
6. Adrien Brody reflects on career surge
Adrien Brody's reaction to winning best actor might have been slightly hampered by how hungry he is. "I haven't eaten anything yet, so I'm not sure how I'm feeling, but I'm so happy to be here," he says backstage.Brody is asked about the surge his career has enjoyed in recent months thanks to The Brutalist, more than two decades after his last awards run for The Pianist."The beauty of being an actor is that any life experience, and there have been many since [The Pianist], anything you've experienced is so valuable in shaping a sense of understanding," he reflects."So the moments of triumph, loss, complexity along your path, they give you an ability to represent those more truthfully and authentically in your work."I'm just so grateful to have had this meaningful opportunity come my way, I've been yearning for this for a long time."I've been working very hard. It's not for a lack of hard work, but there are so many magical things that have to happen for a film to achieve greatness and I'm so happy that all of those things conspired on The Brutalist."And with that, he's off to have some supper.
7. Edward Berger likens Conclave cast to an orchestra
Conclave won best film and best British film, becoming the first movie to take the top two prizes since 1917 (the film, not the year)."I am so humbled and so grateful to be welcomed here so openly with such warmth and open arms," its German director Edward Berger says of the UK. "Basically, I just want to live here, I'm never going to leave."He likens the cast of Pope drama Conclave, which includes Stanley Tucci, Ralph Fiennes and Isabella Rossallini, to an orchestra."No-one really knows [why a cast works so well], but you have a hunch, so there's a lot of discussion - we put pictures up on the wall and it just felt like a good combination," he explained."They were all believable cardinals, all different nationalities and accents, it just felt they were all different instruments in a big musical piece."
8. Brady Corby is optimisitic for the film industry
The Brutalist's Brady Corbet might have won best director, but he said he was slightly too "jet-lagged and exhausted" to fully process it. As much as he's enjoying awards season, he notes: "It'll be amazing when it's done, I'm looking forward to getting back to work."Corbet is not shy of hard work - making the Brutalist was famously a labour of love which took several years. "We basically just didn't sleep," he says. "I haven't had a day off in years."Now that awards campaigning is in its final phase however, with voting for the Oscars closing on Monday, he should finally get some down time. "The week leading up to the Oscars is actually pretty quiet, I'm looking forward to it."The Brutalist, a 3.5-hour film with an intermission, has been a relative box office success despite its intimidating duration."I'm not trying to teach anyone a lesson or anything," he says, "but I do think it's good for the ecosystem that a film like this which is completely uncompromised - I don't like too many cooks in my kitchen - for that to have made $30m globally so far, that's exciting."All the things you're told not to do, when those films are proven to be commercially viable, and people want original, daring movies, it makes me feel more optimistic than usual.'"