The British actor Pete Postlethwaite, who died earlier this month, has been honoured by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts with an BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor, as a flower-loving gang boss in Ben Affleck’s The Town. He received three BAFTA TV nominations, but this is his only film nomination, so many of his friends in the Academy might be tempted to convert it to a win. But there is tough competition in the category from the Golden Globe winning Christian Bale, in The Fighter, Geoffrey Rush, as King George VI’s speech therapist in The King’s Speech, Andrew Garfield for The Social Network and Mark Ruffalo as the sperm donor in The Kids Are All Right.
Ruffalo’s two co-stars, Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are up against each other in the Leading Actress category. They face competition from Black Swan’s Natalie Portman, Noomi Rapace from the Swedish thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and True Grit’s Hailee Steinfeld. By dividing the category into dramas and comedies, the Golden Globes gave trophies to both Bening and Portman last weekend, making this category more difficult to predict.
Not content with featuring one foreign language film in an acting category, BAFTA have featured two, giving a Leading Actor nomination to Javier Bardem for Biutiful. He’s up against James Franco, for 127 Hours, and Jesse Eisenberg for bringing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to the big screen in The Social Network. Jeff Bridges gets a second successive nomination, this year for True Grit, as does Colin Firth, who pipped him last year for A Single Man. Bridges took the Oscar last year, but with the momentum behind the King’s Speech, Firth is in with a stronger chance next month.
There’s a strong British contingent in the final acting category, with Helena Bonham Carter (The King’s Speech), Lesley Manville (Another Year) and Miranda Richardson (Made In Dagenham) vying for the prize. They’re up against Black Swan’s Barbara Hershey and Amy Adams, whose The Fighter co-star Melissa Leo took the Golden Globe, but doesn’t get a nomination here.
There are few surprises at the business end of the nominations, with the Best Film short-list featuring Black Swan, Inception, The Social Network, The King’s Speech and the Coen brothers’ retelling of True Grit.
The King’s Speech also features in the list for the Outstanding British Film, alongside 127 Hours, Another Year, Four Lions and Made in Dagenham.
The Best British Newcomer nominees are Clio Barnard, who won the same prize at the London Film Festival for The Arbor, the artist Banksy for Exit Through the Gift Shop, Chris Morris for Four Lions, Gareth Edwards for Monsters and Nick Whitfield for Skeletons.
Although his film missed out in the Best Film category, Danny Boyle has secured himself Best Director nomination, alongside Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), Christopher Nolan (Inception), Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) and David Fincher (The Social Network).
The Best Original Screenplay award will go to one of Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right or The King’s Speech, while the trophy for the Best Adapted Screenplay will go to 127 Hours, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Social Network, Toy Story 3 or True Grit.
The BAFTA awards will be handed out on Sunday 13 February at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.