The BAFTA EE Rising Star Award, now in its 19th year, has put together a pretty stacked list of actors for the 2024 ceremony.
The Rising Star Award often gets overlooked at the BAFTAs, but over the years the prize unique to the British Academy every awards season has done a pretty good job at predicting some of the industry’s biggest names on their way to the top.
Take a look through the eventual winners of the award, determined by public vote since 2005, and you might recognise a few names. James McAvoy, Eva Green, Kristen Stewart, John Boyega and Daniel Kaluuya have all lifted the funny mask gong thing over the years, while the nominees lists are littered with everyone from Cillian Murphy to Emily Blunt – and they’re both in the same year.
Even amongst such stiff competition, though, the list of actors and films nominated this year looks particularly special. Check out the list, announced today at a fancy Savoy Hotel press conference in London, below:
Phoebe Dynevor (Fair Play)
Ayo Edebiri (Bottoms)
Jacob Elordi (Saltburn)
Mia McKenna-Bruce (How To Have Sex)
Sophie Wilde (Talk To Me)
Jacob Elordi and Ayo Edebiri have both had pretty exceptional years, the former starring in Sofia Coppola’s searing Presley biopic, Priscilla, as well as the internet’s most-discussed raunchy comedy-thriller, Saltburn. Edebiri, meanwhile, on top of her stand-out performance in high school fight club comedy Bottoms, shone as a clueless fight instructor in Theater Camp and an enthusiastic wannabe filmmaker in Sean Price Williams’ The Sweet East. Fair Play, How To Have Sex and Talk To Me, meanwhile, all rank as some of the best directorial debuts of the year (and in 2023, that was no mean feat).
Safe to say, we’re pretty sure we’ll be hearing plenty more from this lot in the years to come.