Photo: AP
Survival drama “The Revenant” was the top winner at Britain’s biggest movie awards on Sunday, taking the best film prize and honors for leading actor Leonardo DiCaprio and director Alejandro G. Inarritu, Reuters reports.
The movie earned five British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards, including for cinematography and sound, at a ceremony in London, two weeks before it vies for Hollywood’s top honors, the Oscars.
In the film, which has already picked up several trophies in this awards season and leads Oscar nominations, DiCaprio portrays fur-trapper Hugh Glass, who after being attacked by a bear, is left for dead by his companions during an 1820s expedition. He survives in harsh winter conditions and sets out for revenge.
DiCaprio is heavily favored to win the best actor Academy Award on Feb. 28, which would be his first in five Oscar acting nominations. In collecting his first BAFTA, he paid tribute to his mother and listed actors Daniel Day-Lewis, Gary Oldman and Peter O’Toole among his inspirations.
“All of this was not expected tonight … Often we have talked about how difficult this movie was to make, and it was, but we are so proud,” he told reporters.
Kate Winslet, who won best supporting actress forplaying a Polish Armenian in the biopic “Steve Jobs”, said it had been an “extraordinary year for women.”
She dedicated her prize “to all those young women that doubt themselves”.
“When I was only 14, I was told by a drama teacher that I might be okay as long as I was happy to settle for the fat girl parts. Look at me now,” she said after accepting the award.
