The oldest person to ever win a Bafta Award
Age is only a number when it comes to acting prizes, with the youngest and oldest winners of any prestigious trophy often being separated by upwards of half a century. When it comes to the oldest person to ever scoop a Bafta, though, the benchmark could end up standing for some time to come.
That’s not to say it’s impossible, and while there are plenty of notable performers to have continued racking up acclaim and awards well into their 70s and 80s, doing so to the extent it demands recognition from industry professionals and peers alike is rarefied air.
When it comes to both the Academy Awards and the Baftas, Anthony Hopkins is the oldest-ever male winner having won corresponding ‘Best Actor’ trophies from both after reducing critics and audiences to emotional wrecks through his intimately devastating performance in The Father, collecting his prizes at the age of 83.
The oldest female winner of a competitive acting Oscar remains Jessica Tandy, who was 80 years old when she took home the ‘Best Actress’ statue for Driving Miss Daisy at the 1990 edition of the ceremony. However, she was a spring chicken compared to the Baftas’ most senior winning performer, even if they didn’t manage to pull off the same record-setting double as Hopkins.
Michael Haneke’s Amour saw Emmanuelle Riva named as ‘Best Leading Actress’, with the 85-year-old being the oldest victor in the history of the Baftas. In a testament to her longevity, it was only her second-ever nomination, and the first came all the way back in 1961 when she was shortlisted in the ‘Best Foreign Actress’ category Hiroshima mon amour, making love a recurring theme.
The Oscar Riva unsuccessfully competed for that year was won by Silver Linings Playbook‘s Jennifer Lawrence, who was only 22 at the time. Having two performers with a 63-year age gap battling for supremacy when it comes to naming the best on-screen turn of the previous 12 months is hardly something that happens all that often, but it can’t be argued that Riva’s Bafta wasn’t richly deserved.
Riva starred opposite Jean-Louis Trintignant as Anne and George in Haneke’s powerful drama as two retired music teachers who’d dedicated their entire personal and professional lives to each other. When she suffers a debilitating stroke, he seeks to honour her promises of never again returning to hospital by taking care of his wife, despite suffering from several physical ailments of his own.
Amour would win the Oscar for ‘Best Foreign Language Film’, but it was Riva who would take the lion’s share of individual accolades from festivals and awards bodies the world over for a staggering performance in a heart-wrenching and intensely personal study of love, loss, and responsibility.
