If there was a surprise at a Bafta that seemed destined to continue elevating One Battle After Another to the altars, and that nationally left Sirat without an award, it was a young British actor of Basque descent, an unexpected winner of the Bafta for best actor beating the two favorites: Timothée Chalamet and Leonardo DiCaprio. Who is this Robert Aramayo, who also achieved a double feat by also winning the award for best newcomer star?
One of the great promises of British cinema, Robert Aramayo portrays in Incontrolable a young man with Tourette's syndrome, a chronic and genetic neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by the presence of involuntary, rapid, and repetitive motor and vocal tics, in a film set in the 80s.
When Kerry Washington opened the envelope and announced Robert Aramayo as the best actor, the Royal Festival Hall fell silent for a few seconds. Minutes earlier, the actor had already taken to the stage to collect the award for best newcomer star, an award voted for by the public. "I can't believe I'm here, looking at actors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Timothée Chalamet and yet, it's me standing on this stage," he said visibly moved as he took to the stage.
With a trembling voice, he thanked Kirk Jones, director and writer of Incontrolable, and made a special reference to Ethan Hawke, whom he was up against in the category and who, he said, changed his future with a talk at his drama school. "Listening to him back then marked us all. Sharing this night with you is simply amazing," he said tearfully.
Robert Aramayo (Hull, 1992) has established himself over the past decade as one of the most recognizable faces of the new generation of performers trained in the British stage tradition. A graduate of the prestigious Juilliard School in New York, Aramayo made his industry breakthrough with a combination of theatrical technique and expressive restraint that soon caught the attention of producers and directors on both sides of the Atlantic.
His first major international exposure came with Game of Thrones, where he portrayed the young Ned Stark in several flashbacks in the sixth season. Although his presence was brief, his performance added nuances to the tragic lineage of House Stark and placed him on the radar of the global audiovisual industry, demonstrating that he could embody the symbolic weight of a character already iconic to millions of viewers.
Following that high-profile debut, Aramayo built a diverse filmography that included titles such as Nocturnal Animals, Tom Ford's psychological thriller, and the Netflix miniseries Behind Her Eyes, where he showcased a more contemporary and ambiguous range. These works solidified his versatility: from elegant and stylized drama to domestic suspense with unexpected twists.
The real turning point came in 2022 with The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Amazon's ambitious production set in the Second Age of Middle-earth. Aramayo took on the challenge of portraying a young Elrond, a character steeped in literary and cinematic heritage following Peter Jackson's saga. His version, more political and vulnerable, aimed to explore the moral and diplomatic dilemmas of the elf in training, moving away from the mature solemnity associated with the character in the popular imagination.
With a career on the rise, especially after the double award on Sunday, Robert Aramayo embodies the profile of a British actor capable of moving between major franchises and smaller-scale projects without losing his interpretative consistency. His still early trajectory points towards sustained consolidation on the international stage, supported by solid training and strategic choices of roles that balance media visibility and dramatic demands.