Film News: Nominations Announced for BAFTA Orange Wednesdays Rising Star Award

Every year, we enter the start of the awards season both in the United Kingdom and across the pond in Hollywood. Many film reviewers use the upcoming BAFTA awards to predict who they believe will see the most success at the Oscars, which follows shortly after it.



Ahead of the forthcoming 2011 BAFTA Awards ceremony, the Academy has revealed who has been nominated for the Orange Wednesday Rising Star Award, the only award to be decided by a vote cast by the general public. Orange Wednesday Rising Star Award juror Ben Drew (also known as rapper Plan B) announced this year’s shortlisted nominees to be: Gemma Arterton, Andrew Garfield, Tom Hardy, Aaron Johnson, and Emma Stone.



The award category was created after the death of Mary Selway, a highly respected BAFTA award winning casting director, whose career spanned across three decades and ninety films before she passed away in 2004. The Orange Wednesday Rising Star award recognises five international actors and actresses whose talent has captured the imagination, hearts and minds of the British public in the movies they featured in over the last year.



Previous winners of the award have included James McAvoy, Eva Green, Noel Clarke, Shia LeBoeuf and last year’s winner, Kristin Stewart, following the overwhelming reception to her appearance in The Twilight Saga movies.



Ben Drew, Orange Wednesdays Rising Star Award juror, commented on the BAFTA website: "It was a great honor to be invited on the jury panel for the Orange Wednesdays Rising Star award this year…I am really pleased with the final five for this year’s award. It shows a great breadth of talent and I think these guys are all truly deserving of this accolade – I can’t wait to see who the public vote for."



Industry insiders have tipped Andrew Garfield for the award after his appearance in Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network. He also will be taking over the lead role of Peter Parker in the upcoming installment of the Spiderman franchise. But with competition from Tom Hardy, who starred in Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster Inception, Aaron Johnson’s breakout role in Kick-Ass, Gemma Arterton and Emma Stone, it definitely will be a close race to call.



If you need to refresh your mind on these films, the trailers of the films nominated are available online to help you make your decision on who you think should win this prestigious award.