From WandaVision to The Crown, how TV stole the show from cinema
As the TV Bafta nominations show, the tide has turned, and the A-listers are now making their boldest work on the small screen
Steve McQueen s Small Axe series brought a cinematic intensity to the small screen
Credit: Des Willie
When is a TV series not a TV series? When it’s an anthology of five standalone dramas from an Oscar-winning film director, which has been nominated for London, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston film critics’ awards. Steve McQueen’s superb Small Axe, which told five stories about the British-West Indian experience from the 1960s to the 1980s, leads the way in this year’s television Baftas, with 15 nominations, announced yesterday, across the Television and the TV Craft awards.
Nick and Priyanka Chopra celebrate holi! Aren t they looking adorable!
The Hindi film industry has been less welcoming towards actors who hail from humble backgrounds. Karan Johar has been pointed out often as the flagbearer of nepotism. While a few star kids squirmed with guilt-ridden embarrassment, others had humbly acknowledged that much of what they get is because of their last name.
Now a new name Adarsh Gourav has become testimony of talent existing outside the Bollywood family. He has been nominated in the BAFTA s Best Actor category along with stalwarts such as Late Chadwick Boseman, Anthony Hopkins, Mads Mikkelson, Tahir Rahim to name a few. If he wins, it would be a huge break for Gourav as an actor, and a lesson for Bollywood producers to shed the thought of outsiders as less bankable for the business.
How Lucy Pardee spots future film stars in the wild
What made Attack the Block or Bafta favourite Rocks so special? Lucy Pardee s uniquely anthropological brand of street casting
Bukky Bakray has been nominated for a BAFTA
Rocks is the little film that could. It felt like an industry coup even before it was nominated for a whopping eight Baftas (more than any other title) yesterday. Shot in London in 2018, with the lead cast populated by young people who had never acted before, with a story (by Theresa Ikoko and Claire Wilson) shaped around them, it’s a miracle of a film, I suggest to its casting director Lucy Pardee. “It is a miracle,” she says. “The further I get away from the making of it, the more I can see just how special it is.”