Wunmi Mosaku Wins BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress

Sinners star Wunmi Mosaku was the first British star to take home a gong at the British Academy Film Awards at London's Royal Festival Hall on Sunday.

After a star-studded red carpet, Hollywood's finest settled into the iconic venue to reveal who had received the coveted honours.

Mosaku, who is pregnant with her second child, thanked her husband, family and daughter from the stage. 

The actress said that playing priestess Annie in the vampire drama Sinners she had connected with a part of herself which she had 'dimmed as an immigrant trying to fit in.'

Ryan Coogler wrote the role of Hoodoo priestess Annie in Sinners especially for Mosaku, who was raised in Manchester and sang for 11 years in the Manchester Girls' Choir.

A Rada graduate, she was catapulted into the spotlight in the 2010 film I Am Slave, in which she played a Sudanese girl sold into slavery.

She won a TV BAFTA as best supporting actress for her role as Damilola Taylor's mother Gloria in Damilola, Our Loved Boy. She's appeared in blockbusters Deadpool & Wolverine and Batman vs Superman.

Wunmi was born in Zaria, Nigeria to parents who are both professors. She now lives in Los Angeles and is expecting her second child.

'It's just been the best feeling ever because we really loved this film,' said Wunmi, who has previously won a Bafta TV Award for her role as Gloria Taylor in the TV film Damilola, Our Loved Boy.

Of Sinners, she said: 'We really poured everything we had into it, and so the audiences showing up and showing so much love for the film last year was so overwhelming and so affirming. Now to have these nominations come in, it's just been the cherry on top.'

The first award of the night was for Special Visual Effects, which was awarded to Avatar: Fire and Ash.

This year's Special Award recipients include Dame Donna Langley, who will be honoured with this year's BAFTA Fellowship, the arts charity's highest accolade. 

The British Chairman of NBCUniversal Entertainment will be celebrated for her prolific career and as of the most influential and respected figures in the entertainment industry.

Additionally, Clare Binns, Creative Director of Picture House Cinemas, will be presented with the BAFTA Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema award. 

The honour recognises her role in championing diverse and fiercely independent work on big screens around the United Kingdom. 

One Battle After Another will be no doubt be hoping to win one award after another, with Paul Thomas Anderson's latest film earning a remarkable fourteen nominations at this year's ceremony. 

But it faces stiff competition, notably from supernatural horror Sinners, with thirteen nominations, and Hamnet, director Chloé Zhao's moving drama about the death of Shakespeare's only son, with eleven. 

Adapted for the screen from Maggie O'Farrell's award-winning novel about the Bard's family life, Hamnet has broken the record for the most nominations for a female-directed film in BAFTA history. 

Irish star Jessie Buckley has been nominated for her lead role in the film after already scoring a Golden Globe and a Critics Choice Award and nominations for the Academy Awards and Screen Actors Guild Awards. 

Co-star Paul Mescal, who was was snubbed during Oscar nominations, will also be hoping for an award after earning a Supporting Actor BAFTA nod. 

Elsewhere, Marty Supreme and Timothée Chalamet will be hoping to make it three times lucky after earning eleven nominations, including Best Film and Best Actor, following recent wins at the and . 

Frankenstein and Sentimental Value each have eight whilst there are five nominations for I Swear and Bugonia, and three nominations for The Ballad of Wallis Island, Pillion and F1. 

Also vying for the Leading Actress BAFTA are Rose Byrne for If I Had Legs I'd Kick You; Kate Hudson for Song Sung Blue; Chase Infiniti for One Battle After Another; Renate Reinsve for Sentimental Value and Emma Stone for Bugonia.

Leonardo DiCaprio could earn his second ever BAFTA after scoring his seventh nomination, this year for his Leading Actor performance in the already heavily decorated movie One Battle After Another.

One Battle After Another earned the most nods with 14, including one for lead star Leonardo DiCaprio