London, Feb. 9: Eddie Redmayne won the best actor award at the Bafta ceremony yesterday in London but the real star of the night was the 73-year-old Cambridge professor whom he portrays in The Theory of Everything - Stephen Hawking.

The film won two other categories - outstanding British film (presented by footballer David Beckham) and adapted screenplay.

The biopic, based on a memoir by Hawking's first wife, Jane (played by Felicity Jones in the movie), deals with the crippling consequences of motor neurone disease.

The audience at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden gave Hawking a standing ovation when he trundled onto the stage in his specially adapted wheelchair to present the award for special visual effects.

His co-presenter, Felicity Jones, made a joke at the expense of Stephen Fry, who was presenting the Bafta prizes for the 10th year.

"It's wonderful to be here and I'm particularly pleased to be presenting with the only person on the planet more intelligent than Stephen Fry," she quipped. "Yes, and better looking," added Hawking, quick as a flash , though his 
voice synthesiser, bringing the house down with roars of laughter. He proceeded to announce the nominations for the category — The Hobbit, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Guardians of the Galaxy, Interstellar and X-Men: Days of Future Past — which, given Hawking’s expertise in the area of cosmology and authorship of A Brief History of Time, was won appropriately enough by Interstellar.

In the foreign language category there was disappointment for Indians. The Lunchbox did not win, though one of stars, Nimrat Kaur, caught the eye of the photographers in her “Georges Hobeika Spring 2015 hot-pink gown”.
The award went to the Polish-Danish drama movie Ida, which triumphed over the other contenders – the  Russian drama Leviathan, Brazilian-British adventure drama thriller film Trash and Belgian drama Two Days, One Night.
The dice was always loaded against The Lunchbox. The vast majority of Bafta’s 6,500 members, who vote for the winners, are white folk more familiar with European themes. Bafta generally strives to cultivate its Hollywood links to the point of being obsequious almost – any star who attends is assured of either an award or the chance to present one. The Americans thanked people few in Britain had heard of and, cringingly, their darling wives and perfect children.

Coming of age drama Boyhood — shot over 12 years with the same cast — was named best film, with Richard Linklater picking up the best director prize. Patricia Arquette also won best supporting actress for her role in the film.
Julianne Moore won the leading actress prize for her performance in Still Alice, as a linguistics professor with the early onset of Alzheimer’s.

Wes Anderson’s quirky comedy The Grand Budapest Hotel won the most awards on the night — a total of five including costume design, production design, make-up and original music; with Anderson winning his first Bafta for original screenplay.

World War Two drama The Imitation Game, with Benedict Cumberbatch as codebreaker Alan Turing, won nothing despite its nine nominations.

Former Bafta president and filmmaker Lord Attenborough, who died last year, was remembered with tributes from the Duke of Cambridge and Robert Downey Jr. A brief clip of Gandhi was shown, along with footage from 1983 of Attenborough bellowing down the phone from Los Angeles: “We have won eight (Oscars)...”
But ultimately last night belonged to 33-year-old Eddie Redmayne, now tipped for an Oscar as well, and Stephen Hawking.

Redmayne accepted his award by recalling that three years ago at Bafta, he had suffered from “a severe bout of food poisoning”.

“Just as Stephen (Fry) came on to start announcing the awards I had to bolt through that door there and I proceeded to redecorate the corridor of the Royal Opera House in an incredibly unfortunate fashion, it was one of worst nights of my life,” he said, before adding, “This is one the best nights of my life, so thank you so much.”
He went on: “I would like to dedicate this wonderful honour to three families.”

There were his own family and his adopted film family involving the cast, crew and the production companies engaged in the making of The Theory of Everything.

“But really this award belongs to one incredible family and they are here this evening and I would like to thank them,” he said. “I would like to thank them for their trust in us, for their generosity and their kindness and for reminding me of the great strength that comes from the will to live a full and a passionate life, so to the Hawkings and the Hellyer Jones’, thank you.”

Back stage in the winners’ enclosure, Redmayne had some words of comfort for his friend and fellow actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who lost out to him in the leading actor category.

“I know people draw similarities, but Ben and I are old, old friends,” he remarked. “What he did in that film (The Imitation Game) was completely brilliant. The two roles are so completely different, but I can see where people draw the comparison. Hopefully there’s room for both. It seems like there has been. He’s got a lot on his plate at the moment, he’s having a baby, he’s getting married, I know he’s a very happy man.”

Redmayne was at Eton with Prince William, while Cumberbatch was at Harrow – which explains why the fight for best actor was represented by the media as “Eton vs Harrow”.

Labour’s shadow culture minister has made a sarcastic comment that “we can’t just have a culture dominated by Eddie Redmayne and .... their ilk.”

Redmayne dealt diplomatically with the question of whether he had gained an unfair advantage because of his privileged Eton connection.

“I think there always should be a debate about where actors are coming from, that diversity is represented,” he conceded. “Our job as actors is to tell stories and everyone should be represented. As far as the public school thing is concerned, I mean, I’ve had a very lucky upbringing.  I have also had a sensational teacher, and that was one man called Simon Dormandy – he is the reason why I became an actor and I got my first jobs.  And so I suppose I tend to attribute it to a teacher, rather than, you know, an entire sort of school thing.”