A star is rising across the pond. On Tuesday, January 7, at a press conference held at London’s Savoy Hotel, the British Academy announced the nominees for BAFTA’s 2025 Rising Star award: Anora‘s Mikey Madison, In Camera‘s Nabhaan Rizwan, Back to Black‘s Marisa Abela, Unstoppable‘s Jharrel Jerome, and Alien: Romulus star David Jonsson.
Established in 2006, the Rising Star award highlights five up-and-coming talents in the entertainment industry, chosen by the BAFTA juries. After a vote conducted by the British public, one lucky star takes home top honors. Previous BAFTA Rising Star nominees include Timothée Chalamet, Florence Pugh and Anya Taylor-Joy ,while big names like Kristen Stewart, Tom Holland, and Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya have won the award in years past. Last year, Mia Mckenna-Bruce took home the honor in a category rounded out by Phoebe Dyvenor, Jacob Elordi, Sophie Wilde, and Ayo Edeberi.
This year’s nominees include Madison, who’s been on a tear for her titular role as a Brooklyn sex worker at the center of a Cinderella story turned nightmare in Sean Baker‘s Anora. The 25-year-old Californian previously starred in Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Scream V, and has been an awards season darling for her work in Anora, receiving a nomination for best actress in a musical comedy at the Golden Globes. She’s also on the BAFTA long list for leading actress in a film and is considered to be a major contender for forthcoming SAG and Oscar nominations, as well.
Last year, 27-year-old Jerome starred opposite Jennifer Lopez and Don Cheadle in Amazon Prime’s Unstoppable, in which he plays Anthony Robles, an American wrestler born with only one leg who won the 2011 NCAA individual wrestling national championship. A Bronx native, Jerome broke through in Hollywood by starring in Barry Jenkins‘s Oscar-winning Moonlight in 2016, and soon followed that with his Emmy-winning turn as Korey Wise—one of The Exonerated 5—in the Netflix limited series When They See Us.
As it so happens, the remaining three Rising Star nominees—Rizwan, Abela, and Jonsson—have all worked together on HBO Industry, filling out the new class of aspiring bankers at Pierrepoint on the buzzy British finance drama. Rizwan played the tragic Hari Dhar, who briefly yet unforgettably appeared in Industry‘s first season back in 2020. Since then, he’s starred as Dionysus opposite Jeff Goldblum‘s Zeus in Netflix’s Kaos, a darkly comic re-imagining of Greek mythology. In 2023, the 28-year-old starred as Aden, a young actor facing repeated rejection, in the British film In Camera.
Jonsson played Augustus “Gus” Sackey, a gay, Ghanaian-British Eton and Oxford grad, on the first two seasons of Industry. The 31-year-old earned critical acclaim and a British Film Independent Award nomination for playing Dom in the 2023 romantic comedy Rye Lane. Last year, he starred as Andy, a reprogrammed android, in Fede Álvarez‘s science fiction horror film Alien: Romulus, and was included on Variety’s “10 Actors to Watch” list. He’s reportedly in talks to play Sammy Davis Jr. opposite Sydney Sweeney‘s Kim Novack in a musical biopic directed by Colman Domingo.
The sole remaining rising star nominee still on Industry, Abela stars as troubled heiress Yasmin Kara-Hanani, who winds up engaged to Kit Harrington‘s landed gentry failed entrepreneur Sir Henry Muck at the end of Industry‘s third season. Last year, the 28-year-old also starred as the late, great Amy Winehouse in Sam Taylor-Johnson‘s musical biopic Back to Black, earning a London Critics’ Circle Film Award nomination, and, like Madison, made the BAFTA long list for leading actress in a film. This year, she’s set to star opposite Cate Blanchette and Michale Fassbender in Black Bug, a thriller directed by Steven Soderbergh and return to Industry to film its fourth season .
One of these five talented performers will be crowned the EE BAFTA Awards’ 20th Rising Star at the ceremony, which will take place on Sunday, Feb. 16th and air on BBC. But the decision is not made by a jury—instead, it rests in the British public’s hands. The voting window is now open, and, assuming you are a British citizen, you can vote at ee.co.uk/BAFTA until Friday 14th at 12pm. May the brightest star win.
