Baby Reindeer's Jessica Gunning gets an early Bafta win

RTÉ News​

11-05-2025

Baby Reindeer's Jessica Gunning won the Bafta for best supporting actress for playing a stalker in the hit Netflix series as Ariyon Bakare picked up the corresponding male gong for Mr Loverman.
The female performance in a comedy Bafta - where Nicola Coughlan was also nominated - was snapped up by Welsh comedian Ruth Jones for BBC sitcom Gavin And Stacey: The Finale.
"I'm not going to lie this is immense," she said. "The person I would like to thank most his my dear, dear talented friend James Corden."
She said without British actor Corden "Vanessa Shanessa Nessa' Jenkins would not exist", as their final instalment of the show brought to a close the love story between his character and hers.
Netflix hit Baby Reindeer, said to be inspired by the real-life experiences of creator Richard Gadd, sees his character Donny being hounded by a woman called Martha, played by Gunning, after he serves her a free cup of tea in the pub where he works.
Elsewhere, the Bafta for limited drama was awarded to ITV's Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, which has renewed public attention on the subpostmasters who fought to clear their names in the wake of the Horizon scandal.
Yorkshire-born Gunning beat her fellow Baby Reindeer star, trans actress Nava Mau, to the prize, who played Donny's girlfriend Teri.
On stage on Sunday at London's Royal Festival Hall, Gunning said: "Hello, cheeky chops, gosh, thank you Bafta, wow", before joking that she used to pretend to be a dog in her garden.
"I sometimes do this kind of cheesy thing where I look back on the younger me and moments in my life, and I imagine the kind of then me, seeing me now, and think, 'little did we know'," she said.
She said last year, her and Gadd were at the ceremony, and "little did we know what the year had in store", while thanking him for changing "her life".
Gunning has previously picked up an Emmy, Sag award and Golden Globe for playing Martha, whose interference in Donny's life makes his world unravel, as the show also dramatises the failing comedian character's other traumas.
Picking up the best supporting actor prize was Ariyon Bakare for the BBC LGBT drama Mr Loverman, based on the Bernardine Evaristo novel of the same name.
The programme follows Barrington Walker, played by Lennie James, as he contemplates leaving his wife for Bakare's character.
Accepting the prize, Bakare appeared to stop a few times as he became "nervous" and thanked his sister for her support.
He said: "This award stands on the shoulders of those who came before me, those who might have been afraid to come out, to be who they want to be."
He also thanked James and Sharon D Clarke, who played Barrington's wife Carmel.
Collecting the limited drama prize, Mr Bates producer Patrick Spence said that they would never have been able to make the show without ITV and the journalists who had covered the scandal.
He said that people such as Alan Bates "demanded action with such rage" and that the airing of the drama proved the public "cannot abide liars and bullies".
The ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall in London was opened by host and Scottish actor Alan Cumming, who referenced his presenting role on The Traitors US in a sketch with footage of him shown in the Scottish Highlands castle where the hit reality series takes place.
On stage, Cumming also joked about his acting career, Facebook, and brought a fake children's book about long speeches and who winners are supposed to thank.