British actress Cynthia Erivo and US star Pamela Anderson both arrived on the red carpet wearing white outfits for the Bafta film awards.
Scottish actor and Doctor Who star David Tennant, who had coloured hair and a sparkly black suit, is hosting the ceremony for the second year running at the Royal Festival Hall in London on Sunday.
Erivo is nominated for the best actress Bafta for the film adaptation of the musical Wicked, a prequel to The Wizard Of Oz.
Erivo’s co-star, US pop singer Ariana Grande is up for best supporting actress for playing Glinda the good witch, an early friend to Erivo’s green-skinned misunderstood Elphaba.
Spanish language film Emilia Perez is nominated for 11 awards, including a leading actress nomination for Spanish actress Karla Sofia Gascon, while American co-stars Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldana will go head-to-head in the supporting actress category.
They will compete against Italian-born US star Isabella Rossellini for playing a nun in papal drama Conclave, English actress Felicity Jones for portraying American actor Adrien Brody’s wife in The Brutalist and Hollywood star Jamie Lee Curtis for The Last Showgirl, about a showgirl who needs to find a new path when her show closes abruptly after three decades.
Curtis said before the event that she could not attend but her co-star, Baywatch actress Anderson, who played a veteran Las Vegas showgirl whose career comes to a sudden end in The Last Showgirl, is there in her place.
Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres, who has not been nominated for the Portuguese-language film I’m Still Here, bowed and kissed her hand on the red carpet.
Up for best actress is US star Demi Moore – who wore a blue and white sparkly outfit – for body horror The Substance, Mikey Madison, who plays a sex worker in Anora who falls for the son of a Russian oligarch, and Saoirse Ronan for The Outrun – a film exploring mental health and addiction.
Director of The Substance Coralie Fargeat told the PA news agency it is “not a burden, but a pride” that she is one of the few women who have been nominated for best director.
The French filmmaker, who is the only woman nominated this year, added: “I do believe we want a better world, we need this to change.”
On the red carpet, Bafta chief executive Jane Millichip told PA that this is a “really wide open race” and she had “no idea how to call” the winners.
She also said: “I think the viewing public in the UK have always welcomed films not in the English language, whether they’re subtitled or dubbed. We mostly subtitle in the UK, so I don’t think it’s a stretch for British audiences to watch and welcome these films.
“So the film not in the English language is a really important category for me. I think also the range of films, the number of countries represented, and the languages. I mean, it’s fantastic to have an Irish film (Kneecap) in Irish I mean, that’s great.”
Gascon has apologised for tweets she sent before the awards race and is not expected to attend the ceremony.
When asked about the controversy surrounding Emilia Perez, Ms Millichip said that “we don’t comment on any particular nominee”, and the event was a celebration of “great craft”.
Stacy Martin, who stars in the multi-nominated film The Brutalist, said the most amazing thing about the film is that it has been made by “a family of friends”.
The French actress, who plays the daughter of a businessman in the post-Second World War film, also told PA: “Even though the scope of the film was very big, there were lots of very strong friendships and strong collaborations happening, so you’re kind of more free and less intimidated to dive in.”
Also arriving on the red carpet was British actor and The Brutalist star Joe Alwyn, Happy Valley actor James Norton, and Wallace And Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl co-directors Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham, who brought along figurine versions of their characters to the event.
Take That will perform their chart-topping hit Greatest Day, which features in the film Anora, and Wicked star Goldblum is set to play the piano during the In Memoriam segment.
