Benedict Wong And Sheila Atim Open Up About Being On The Jury For EE BAFTA’s Rising Star

So many of the previous Rising Stars have gone on to great heights; whose work have you been most impressed by in the last few years?

Benedict: Last year – David Jonsson. I absolutely loved Rye Lane, it’s now my all-time favourite rom-com, I was literally blubbing watching it. Every time I see him, it’s always quality.

Sheila: I think from previous winners, what I’ve really enjoyed is seeing people who I know work really, really hard and seeing them finally achieve that breakout moment and that tipping point is always so exciting. So obviously, for somebody like me who’s inside the industry, I get to see all the stuff that maybe audiences don’t get to see, and I know how hard some people have been grafting, I know how long people have been chipping away at their careers and training and going to classes and taking small roles.

Sheila, you’ve got amazing credits in film, TV, and theatre. How do you approach those different disciplines? 

Sheila: I think for me, film, TV, and theatre are actually fundamentally all the same thing. The difference is that the context of the medium requires you to tweak your skill set slightly differently, but ultimately, I approach everything from the same place. The text is key. You start there, you dig into it, you research if research is needed, you ask yourself questions, you ask the director questions, and you follow your instincts. There are slight changes in technique, like if you’re in a theatre, obviously, you have to project your voice more because you don’t have a microphone or a boom dangling above your head, but as long as the emotion and the intention are there and you’re approaching it from the same place, everything else follows naturally. 

And Benedict, you’ve had a great year, especially with Weapons. How did you find keeping those plot twists a secret?

Benedict: Well, obviously, I came from doing Avengers and staying completely tight-lipped about that – at first, we were told we were all going to a wedding, and then it was Tony Stark’s funeral! But holding that kind of information has kind of sort of trained me at such a level that even when people give me an NDA to sign, I say, “Look I I kept Tony Stark’s death quiet.” But it’s been really fantastic, the audiences have really drawn into this horror genre of Weapons and the real communal experience that everyone’s had, from literally laughing and screaming at the same time, so yeah, I’ve been thrilled with that.