If there was an award for Most Down-to-Earth Actor at this weekend’s Baftas, Robert Aramayo can be a shoo-in. When the British rising star found out he was nominated alongside the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael B Jordan and Timothée Chalamet on this yr’s Best Actor class – for his touching efficiency in the drama I Swear – he was a bit indisposed. “I was literally doing the dishes!” he tells me forward of suiting up for the ceremony on Sunday. “I had it up on YouTube and just couldn’t believe it when I saw my name.”
Aramayo’s had an enviably stacked first month of the yr. The Hull-born 33-year-old – maybe greatest referred to as the diplomatic Elrond in Prime Video’s Lord of the Rings collection The Rings of Power – made his stage debut reverse Rosie Sheehy in Guess How Much I Love You? at the Royal Court, an emotionally fraught manufacturing about a pair’s sudden ultrasound outcomes. One week later, he grew to become a Bafta nominee. He was additionally nominated in the EE Rising Star category, the place he’s competing against names together with One Battle After Another’s Chase Infiniti; speak about a number of buses arriving at as soon as.
The Bafta recognition launched a month of intense plate-juggling for Aramayo: a surfeit of promotional appointments to take a seat by in the day, then his night play duties. In one wild case of tonal whiplash, the actor was whisked to a buzzy occasion in Knightsbridge – held for him and his fellow Rising Star nominees – instantly after coming off stage. If anybody has motive to be exhausted proper now, it’s him.
“I’m absolutely knackered, I won’t lie to you,” he laughs. “It’s a bit of a mental time. You know when you’re at this point in your life where people are just like, ‘What about that? And what about some of this as well? Can you handle that?’ At what point is your plate a bit too full? I guess I’m going to find out.”
I Swear, set in Nineteen Eighties Galashiels, charts the early lifetime of Tourette syndrome campaigner John Davidson, who begins to develop tics in class, which then evolve into involuntary swearing and unintentionally off-colour outbursts. At the time, the world was not educated on the situation – his academics thought he was being disruptive; his mother and father, rebellious. After a interval of intense desolation, he was helped by two essential figures in his life: his greatest mate’s mom, psychological well being nurse Dottie Achenbach (performed by Maxine Peake), and group centre caretaker Tommy Trotter (Peter Mullan, additionally Bafta-nominated). While the movie would possibly sound like a slice of tear-jerking schmaltz, in reality it’s something however – it’s a whip-smart exploration of Davidson’s frustrations, which acknowledges the uniqueness of his state of affairs while by no means making him a topic of mockery or pity. The movie’s 5 Bafta nominations – which embody Outstanding British Film and Best Original Screenplay for author/director Kirk Jones – are wholly deserved. But they’re not one thing Aramayo ever imagined attainable when he was solid in the movie again in 2024.
I stored assembly all these unbelievable individuals who reside with Tourette’s. I actually, actually care about them and their tales
“The first thing on my mind was John,” he recollects. “I just think back to those early days, and me and Kirk being like, ‘How are we going to tell this story and do justice to him?’. Then I kept meeting all these incredible people who live with Tourette’s. I really, really care about them and their stories. And now here we are. I never expected any of this. It’s so lovely.”
Jones at first thought-about casting someone with Tourette’s, however found the stress positioned upon that individual would have made the job “near impossible”. Instead, he ensured the manufacturing consulted with individuals with Tourette’s for final authenticity, and Davidson himself gave the nod to solid Aramayo. But as an actor enjoying somebody with the situation, his accountability was profound. It was a penny-drop second that unlocked the function for him – that the movie is about Davidson’s emotional journey; it’s not the tics that outline his state of affairs, however the responses to the tics from these round him. “It was more about settling into John’s centre of gravity, into the way John moves through the world, how John holds himself – his physicality, his body – without focusing on the obvious.”
Aramayo says Davidson is “over the moon” about the movie’s Bafta nominations. “He’s so passionate about spreading awareness, about how much more education is needed and guidelines for young people and ways that we can still help. So I think anything that helps that mission, he’s excited about it.” He texts Davidson “all the time” – and if he hadn’t been rehearsing for Guess How Much I Love You?, he would have spent a part of the Christmas interval with the actual Dottie in Galashiels, too. (“I’m very, very close with her,” Aramayo says. “And we never talk about the film!”)
Aramayo’s plans for Bafta morning are easy: he’ll have a lie-in, then hit the health club to clear his thoughts. Then he’ll go the place he’s instructed. Whether that shall be the Bafta podium to just accept an award stays to be seen, however no matter occurs, Monday morning shall be a far quieter affair: not solely will the Baftas be out of the approach, however Guess How Much I Love You? ends its run this week. So a relaxation is on the agenda. A mix of trepidation and reduction flashes throughout his face.
“It’ll be radio silence!” he laughs.
I wouldn’t be so positive.
You can vote for the EE Rising Star award here, with the vote closing at 12pm on Friday 20 February
The Baftas shall be broadcast on iPlayer and BBC One from 7pm on Sunday
