Vote on BAFTA's Rising Star Award
Saturday, January 5, 2019 at 2:11PM 
The BAFTA nominations (i.e. the UK version of the Oscars) will be announced this coming Wednesday. That's during the Oscar nomination voting period (which runs January 7th through the 14th) so it could be helpful to certain contenders (we're looking at you, especially, Mary Poppins Returns since you got stiffed at the PGA.)
But we already know the nominees in one category with BAFTA, their annual EE Rising Star Award, which is voted on by the public. This year's nominees and the 13 year history of that category after the jump...
- Jessie Buckley (Beast and Wild Rose, plus A Little Night Music on stage)
- Cynthia Erivo (Widows and Bad Times at the El Royale)
- Barry Keoghan (American Animals)
- LaKeith Stanfield (Sorry To Bother You)
- Letitia Wright (Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War)
You can vote for one of these five here.
RISING STAR HISTORY (2006-2018)
As you can see in the image block below this honor usually goes to young male actors. But this year we're betting it's going to Letitia Wright because she's in the top two-grossing films of 2018 which equals maximum public awareness. Plus history shows that being in blockbusters helps you win this. See also: John Boyega (Star Wars), Tom Holland (Spider-Man), Kristen Stewart (in the middle of the Twilight years), and Tom Hardy (who won right between Inception and Dark Knight Rises),.
Who will you vote for and what do you make of this history? Do you think these careers have aged well?
Reader Comments (16)
I had to look up Noel Clarke on imdb. That's never a good sign when he won a rising star award 10 years ago.
Why are Americans eligible for this prize?
This is bizarre. I would love a more in-depth analysis of this award. Who is Adam Deacon and why did he win? What did Juno Temple do in 2013 to merit this? Was Will Poulter given this for Maze Runner and We're the Millers???? Kristen Stewart was still a rising star after Panic Room, Adventureland, and THREE of the Twilight movies???? So weird.
@shawshank If I remember correctly, Will Poulter really wanted to win and was pretty active on twitter asking his fans to vote for him.
Re. Adam Deacon - I still have no idea who he is or what he's done, and it's crazier when you think he was up against Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Eddie Redmayne, and Chris O'Dowd!
Future academy award nominees on this year list: all of them! Barry and LaKeith should had been nominated last year (Killing of a Sacred Dear and Get Out). My vote this year is between Letitia and Cynthia. Love them so much!
Future academy awards nominees / winners of the last 12 years list:
McAvoy - Green - Stewart - O'Connel - Boyega - Holland
Should already being nominated for the Oscars:
McAvoy - Atonement / Glass prequel I forgot the name
Green - Casino Royale
Stewart - Still Alice / Personal Chopper
Holland - The Impossible
For the non-Brits here, the Noel Clarke/Adam Deacon "non-famous" anomalies are actually quite interesting.
Noel Clarke created a urban youth-crime film series which started with "Kidulthood" (and had sequels "Adulthood" and "Brotherhood") which got a lot of attention in the UK for being indies which were actually featuring the kinds of people who were being portrayed in the film. It developed a cult following which I guess he was able to galvanise on whatever social media was around in 2009. He had also been in "Doctor Who" a couple of years before. From looking at his Wikipedia, it looks like he tried to make a go of it in the US but for whatever reason it didn't pan out.
Adam Deacon was a protege of Clarke's, appearing in the "...Hood" movies and he won the Rising Star award for a parody of them called "Anuvahood" (which, again, being the scrappy underdog star of a cult series, he was able to get support from the fans). He wasn't particularly famous in the UK before winning the award though, and only really became slightly so after winning the award when he succumbed to bipolar disorder and had a public feud with Clarke, accusing him of sabotaging his career, and was also arrested for threatening random people in London with a machete. Needless to say, he hasn't been heard of since that incident.
Given what both Anya and Jack said, these are great arguments for having awards voting be restricted to a vetted group with single ballots versus wide-open popularity contests. However imperfect, it at least minimizes outright ballot box stuffing.
What a fabulous quintet!
I adore Letitia Wright since I first saw her in Banana and Cucumber, but I'm not crazy about Black Panther and I'm not watching the other one so I might end up voting for Jessie Buckley who was astonishing in War and Peace.
Past winners? Wish there were more women, but it's quite and impressive list.
Out of the nominees it should definitely be Letitia Wright. Even though my personal opinion is that she's laughably bad in Black Panther. But this award is obviously not about the performance. It's about presence.
Where's Henry Golding? Did his 2 hits not go across the pond?
Lakeith is the one who's most due.
Totally not over Daisy Ridley not being nominated for this.
Cynthia Erivo for life!!
In case anyone is interested here are the winners with the nominees in this category in previous years (it was awarded for the first time in 2006)
2006: James McAvoy
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Gael García Bernal, Rachel McAdams, Michelle Williams
2007: Eva Green
Emily Blunt, Naomie Harris, Cillian Murphy, Ben Whishaw
2008: Shia LaBeouf
Sienna Miller, Ellen Page, Sam Riley, Tang Wei
2009: Noel Clarke
Michael Cera, Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Hall, Toby Kebbell
2010: Kristen Stewart
Jesse Eisenberg, Nicholas Hoult, Carey Mulligan, Tahar Rahim
2011: Tom Hardy
Gemma Arterton, Andrew Garfield, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Stone
2012: Adam Deacon
Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Chris O'Dowd, Eddie Redmayne
2013: Juno Temple
Elizabeth Olsen, Andrea Riseborough, Suraj Sharma, Alicia Vikander
2014: Will Poulter
Dane DeHaan, George MacKay, Lupita Nyong'o, Léa Seydoux
2015: Jack O'Connell
Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Margot Robbie, Miles Teller, Shailene Woodley
2016: John Boyega
Taron Egerton, Dakota Johnson, Brie Larson, Bel Powley
2017: Tom Holland
Laia Costa, Lucas Hedges,Ruth Negga, Anya Taylor-Joy
2018: Daniel Kaluuya
Timothée Chalamet, Josh O'Connor, Florence Pugh, Tessa Thompson
This category is one of my favorites because it recognizes those actors and actresses that you see will have a great future. Although I'm not 100% agree that the winner is chosen by voting as this benefits the one that has the most visible or popular movie or as the case of Noel Clarke (who won over Michael Fassbender) was in Doctor Who at that time.
I would like Barry Keoghan to win, who has demonstrated great versatility in American Animals, Dunkirk, The Killing of a Sacred Deer. But the winner will be Letitia Wright who has the most popular movie besides being in an episode of Black Mirror (with Emmy nomination included) but she is talented so she deserves it.
I don't know who Jessie Buckley is, but the other four make a terrific set of nominees. Wouldn't mind any of them winning.
Still think it's weird that you have to be British to vote for this award but not in order to win it...