Lesbian period drama The Favourite dominates BAFTAs
Winner of the Leading Actress award for The Favourite, Olivia Colman poses in the press room during the EE British Academy Film Awards at Royal Albert Hall on February 10, 2019 in London, England. (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty)
Lesbian comedy drama The Favourite brought home the highest number of prizes at the 72nd British Academy Film Awards on Sunday (February 10).
The period film about the power struggle for Queen Anne’s attention bagged the first award of the televised ceremony, for Outstanding British Film.
It ended the night with a total seven awards, including a supporting actress accolade for Rachel Weisz and a leading actress honour for Olivia Colman.
Colman thanked her co-stars Weisz and Emma Stone in her acceptance speech, for which she used notes to try and get to the end of it without being too overcome by emotion.
“The thing I really want to do is Emma and Rachel—I must keep it together—not just for your performances but for what you did after the cameras stopped rolling,” Colman said.
She continued: “We’ve never talked about this and I find it very emotional but you were the classiest and coolest honour guards any woman could ever have and I love you.”
Rachel Weisz won a BAFTA for Supporting Actress for her work on the film The Favourite (Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty)
Colman then briefly lost her point but then added: “This isn’t for the lead it’s for A lead and as far as I’m concerned all three of us are the same and should be the lead and it’s weird that we can’t do that. This is for all three of us. It’s got my name on it, but we can scratch in some others names. Thank you so much.”
The Favourite also won in the categories Original Screenplay, Costume Design, Production Design, Make Up & Hair. It lost the top award of Best Film, which went to Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma—the Netflix film about the life of an Indigenous domestic worker in Mexico City won a total of four prizes.
The Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, which was nominated for a total seven awards, only won two prizes—one for Sound and one recognising Rami Malek’s performance as queer icon Freddie Mercury.
Lady Gaga, Lukas Nelson and Bradley Cooper were recognised in the Original Music category for A Star Is Born soundtrack. The award was collected by Cooper as Gaga was in California for the Grammy’s awards.
the Favourite‘s Olivia Colman and Rachel Weisz say ‘gay rights’
Ahead of the ceremony, a fan waiting for BAFTA stars along the red carpet got The Favourite‘s Colman and Weisz, who play lesbian lovers, to say “gay rights” on camera.
HERES THE BOTH TOGETHER pic.twitter.com/awjTsLxoc6
— grace (@Igbtdisney) February 10, 2019
Twitter user grace (@lgbtdisney), posted the viral video clips on Sunday. The footage was seen by more than 300,000 people and retweeted almost 3,000 times.
