Emma Stone has won Leading Actress BAFTA for ‘Poor Things’.
The 35-year-old actress said she was “in awe” of everyone who worked on Yorgos Lanthimos’ surreal comedy and hailed the director for “our friendship and the gift of Bella [Emma’s character].”
Emma also thanked her mother, saying: “She kind of made me believe this crazy idea that I can do something like this.”
Emma was nominated in the Leading Actress category alongside Fantasia Barrino for ‘The Color Purple’, ‘Anatomy of a Fall’s Sandra Hüller, Carey Mulligan for ‘Maestro’, ‘Rye Lane’ star Vivian Oparah and ‘Barbie’s Margot Robbie.
Meanwhile, Cillian Murphy won the Leading Actor award at the BAFTAs.
The 47-year-old actor – who plays the titular role in Christopher Nolan’s atomic bomb saga – picked up the prize at the ceremony at London’s Royal Festival Hall.
He triumphed in a category which included Bradley Cooper for ‘Maestro’, Colman Domingo for ‘Rustin’, Paul Giamatti for ‘The Holdovers’, Barry Keoghan for ‘Saltburn’ and Teo Yoo for ‘Past Lives’.
Cillian won his award after Nolan paid tribute to his leading man when he collected his Best Director award for ‘Oppenheimer’.
Robert Downey Jr won the Supporting Actor gong for the film, which was also victorious in the Cinematography and Editing categories.
‘Oppenheimer’ has been nominated for a total of 13 awards.
Earlier, Da’Vine Joy Randolph won the Supporting Actress award for ‘The Holdovers’ and said: “‘Thank you for trusting me with this beautiful character.
“Being able to wear this beautiful gown, standing on the stage in London, is not a responsibility I take lightly.”
She also thanked her co-star Giamatti and said she “cries every time” she says his name.
She went on: “I’m proud to call you a friend and thank you for never wavering.”
French legal drama ‘Anatomy Of A Fall’ won the Original Screenplay gong and co-writer and director Justine Triet, collected the award.
She said: “The last time I was in London, a woman said to me: ‘After I saw your movie I called my ex and told him to see it to understand why I dumped him’. Someone else said ‘Did you put a mic in my kitchen?'”
Pointing to her co-writer and partner Arthur Harari, she added: “I would like to make a statement tonight: it’s a fiction and we are reasonably fine.”
Comedy drama ‘American Fiction’ won Adapted Screenplay over ‘All of Us Strangers’, ‘Oppenheimer’, ‘Poor Things’ and ‘The Zone of Interest’.
In his opening monologue, host David Tennant managed to poke fun at the upcoming US presidential election, where current President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are expected to go head-to-head.
Referring to Stone’s ‘Poor Things’, he said that the film is about a reanimated woman with a child’s brain and joked: “one of them may even be elected president”.
