BAFTAs 2015: Rosamund Pike, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston celebrate at rival bashes
Happy Bafta winners and philosophical losers celebrated into the early hours today at rival parties across the capital.
Best actress Julianne Moore first took centre stage at the official post-show dinner at Grosvenor House.
Later, best actor Eddie Redmayne and the triumphant cast of best film Boyhood - led by Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette - were toasted at a party thrown by Universal at Little House in Mayfair. And at the Rosewood Hotel in Holborn, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein hosted a giant bash with an entire room dedicated to dessert - complete with chocolate fountain.
He welcomed his own nominees, including Amy Adams for Big Eyes and Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley from The Imitation Game, as well as A-list awards contenders such as Michael Keaton, Steve Carell, and ceremony MC Stephen Fry. Some guests, including Rosamund Pike, made it to both the later parties.
A pregnant Knightley did not stay long, leaving young heartthrob Douglas Booth dancing on tabletops and Cuba Gooding Jr and Adams also showing off their moves. Dominic Cooper was the last to leave the floor, as the final guests were ushered out at 4am.
BAFTAs 2015: after party
Cumberbatch, who had been in the running for best actor, was graceful in defeat, saying “the best man won”.
He added: “He’s got to go on and win the Oscar now.”
EE rising star award winner Jack O’Connell took his mother Alison and sister Megan from Derby.
“I’m over the moon - it’s probably the biggest night of my life so far,” he said. “I would probably end up getting carried away, so I strategically brought my mum and sister down to keep an eye on me.”
Earlier he played down the dominance of public school-educated actors like Redmayne and Cumberbatch, adding: “We represent different classes but I don’t think that should be important.”
Redmayne, 33, admitted playing Stephen Hawking in The Theory Of Everything would be a tough act to follow, adding: “You dream of getting to play extraordinary or interesting people. They rarely come as extraordinary as Stephen.”
He also revealed he plans to take his new wife Hannah Bagshawe, whose honeymoon was interrupted by the Golden Globes, to a beach after shooting his new film, The Danish Girl.
Writer Anthony McCarten won adapted screenplay for the Hawking biopic, which was also named outstanding British film.
He said he was reassured by the death of the computer Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey that Hawking’s computerised voice would prove no barrier to emotion in the story of the professor’s first marriage.
Despite major American victories at last night’s Royal Opera House ceremony, veteran director Mike Leigh, 71, said it was a good time for British film.
Speaking after accepting a Bafta fellowship, he said: “It feels healthy to me - and I’m happy to be pessimistic when I get the opportunity.” A host of guests, from Stephen Beresford and David Livingstone - the writer/producer team behind Pride, who won outstanding debut - to Whiplash star JK Simmons agreed finding funding was hard.
But Simmons, who won best supporting actor, said the awards attention for films “thinking outside the box” should help. “Hopefully this open the doors for other interesting films.”
