Local Actor On BAFTA Shortlist

Will Poulter is up for the Rising Star award

Related Links

Will Poulter

School of Comedy

Participate

Sign up for our free weekly newsletter

Comment on this story on the

A young Chiswick actor has been shortlisted as a 'Rising Star' for the BAFTAs.

Will Poulter (20) who landed a starring role in Hollywood feature film, We're The Millers, alongside Jennifer Aniston, is nominated as is George MacKay, who has appeared in Sunshine on Leith, and How I Live Now.

Both went to Harrodian School and have made it into the final shortlist of five nominees who have displayed "exceptional talent".

The award which will be voted for by the public is the only one in which there is a public interaction as part of the EE British Academy Film Awards in 2014.

The other nominees are French actress Léa Seydoux, who recently starred as Emma in Palme d'Or-winning film Blue is the Warmest Colour, Lupita Nyong'o, the Mexican-born Kenyan actress and filmmaker who made her American film debut in Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave. American actor Dane DeHaan is the final nominee. DeHaan, 27, starred alongside Daniel Radcliffe in Beat poet film Kill Your Darlings

Will shot to international fame after landing a part in We're The Millers the Hollywood movie starring Jennifer Aniston of Friends fame but his potential was first spotted by Laura Lawson who was his drama teacher at Harrodian School. He also appeared in School Of Comedy, the independent British film Son Of Rambow and 'The Chronicles Of Narnia: Voyage Of The Dawn Treader'.

George, who also lives in west London has played a tortured survivor in For Those in Peril for which he won a British Academy Scotland Award ; and he played Eddie in Kevin Macdonald’s apocalyptic tale How I Live Now.

Now in its ninth year (previously the Orange Rising Star), the award has set a standard for identifying talent destined for future film stardom. The award was created in honour of Mary Selway, the highly respected BAFTA-winning casting director whose career spanned three decades and over ninety films before she died in 2004.

The jury who selected the five nominees, from hundreds suggested, featured leading film industry figures, including jury chair Pippa Harris, Deputy Chairman of BAFTA’s Film Committee and producing partner of Sam Mendes, actress Gemma Arterton, film critic Mark Kermode, director Kirk Jones and producer Pete Czernin, as well as leading film and entertainment journalists.

January 10, 2014