The 2019 BAFTA Awards will take place on Sunday 10th February at the Royal Albert Hall and the first nominations have been announced. This morning, the five nominees for the EE Rising Star Award – which will be voted for by the public – were revealed.
The nominees follow in the glittering footsteps of previous winners, Daniel Kaluuya, Tom Holland, Kristen Stewart and Tom Hardy.
Here are the nominees and the talent who will be setting your cultural agenda for 2019 and a long time to come…
The Irish Acting Beast: Jessie Buckley
You will recognise the Irish actress from her cracking TV work in the likes of BBC 1960s war drama, The Last Post, the epic War and Peace and Tom Hardy’s Taboo. But the twenty-nine-year-old actress registered on the film critics’ radar for her role in Beast, which saw her win a British Independent Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Beast follows Jessie’s character, Moll, as she embarks on an affair with an outsider who encourages her to break free from the shackles of her oppressive family. Fun fact: she came second in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s BBC talent show, I’ll Do Anything, which cast Nancy in the Oliver West End comeback.
Widows‘s Wonder Woman: Cynthia Erivo
After treading the theatre boards to Tony Award-winning fame for her role in the Broadway revival of The Colour Purple, Cynthia transitioned to the silver screen in 2018 with quite the string of roles. First came Bad Times at the El Royale alongside some little-known actors, Chris Hemsworth, Dakota Johnson and Jeff Bridges and then her powerhouse performance alongside Viola Davis in Steve McQueen’s Widows. You will next see Cynthia is the highly anticipated, Chaos Walking alongside Daisy Ridleyand Spiderman AKA Tom Holland telling the tale of a dystopian world where there are no women and living creatures can hear each other’s thoughts in a stream of images, words, and sounds called Noise. Dun dun dunnnnn.
The Slayer of The Sacred Screen: Barry Keoghan
Barry hurtled to fame in 2017’s The Killing of a Sacred Dear, the Cannes Film festival award-winning film which tells the story of Keoghan’s Barry who reeked a harrowing revenge on drunken surgeon played by Colin Farrell. Next came the blockbuster, Dunkirk, and the 26-year-old from Dublin continued his meteoric rise with American Animals, where four pals attempt a library heist – yes, really.
Sorry To Bother You its Lakeith Stanfield
The twenty-seven-year-old, who also goes by the name of Keith Stanfield, followed strong roles in Get Out and TV’s Atlanta by taking the lead in Sorry to Bother You, a dark comedy film following Stanfield’s Telemarketer who is led into a macabre universe after he discovers the magical key that leads to material glory. Deep. Former BAFTA EE Rising Star nominee, Tessa Thompson also stars alongside Armie Hammer. The actor come rapper will hit our screens next in a Daniel Craig murder mystery entitled, Knives Out.
Black Panther Babe: Letitia Wright
2018 saw the British babe, Letitia Wright star in Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, The Commuter and Ready Player One and take the prize as the highest earning actor in Hollywood after making, apparently, $1. 55 billion. Wowzah. 2019 will see Letitia reprise her iconic role as the inventive Princess, Shuri in the most anticipated Avengers: End Game. We. Can’t. Wait.
You can vote for your favourite star to win the EE Rising Star here.
