Kate Winslet offers tearful tribute to co-star daughter as she bags Leading Actress award at TV Baftas
15 May 2023, 01:35 | Updated: 15 May 2023, 01:54
I Am Ruth star Kate Winslet made a tearful tribute to her co-star daughter as she won the Leading Actress prize at the TV Baftas on Sunday night.
Bad Sisters (Apple TV+) and Derry Girls (Channel 4), I Am Ruth (Channel 4) The Traitors (BBC One) were the big winners at London’s Royal Festival Hall for the, with two awards each.
Claudia Winkleman bagged Best Entertainment Performance for her presenting on hit show The Traitors, which attracted an average audience of 5.4 million in its first series.
Titanic star Kate Winslet won her award for her portrayal of a mother of attempting to connect with her troubled teenager daughter in I Am Ruth.
In an emotional speech, Winslet said: “This means a great deal because it really does mean that small British television dramas can still be mighty.”
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She also spoke about her daughter Mia Threapleton, who played her daughter in the series and was in the audience, saying: “There were days when it was agony for her to dig as deeply as she did, into very frightening emotional territory sometimes, and it took my breath away.
“I Am Ruth was made for parents and their children, for families who feel that they are held hostage by the perils of the online world.
“For parents who wish they could still communicate with their teenagers but who no longer can.
“And for young people who have become addicted to social media and its darker sides – this does not need to be your life.
“To people in power and to people who can make a change – please criminalise harmful content. Please eradicate harmful content. We don’t want it. We want our children back.”
The ceremony was hosted by comedians Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan who joked about the importance of balance at the BBC throughout the evening, following the recent impartiality rows the corporation has faced.
Ben Whishaw took home the Best Leading Actor gong for his outing as a burnt out doctor in the BBC One's This Is Going to Hurt, adapted from the novel by Adam Kay, while Adeel Akhtar won Best Supporting Actor for role in BBC One murder drama Sherwood.
Other highlights included Lewis Capaldi's performance of his latest single Wish You The Best, and speeches from Lenny Rush (winner of Male Performance in a Comedy for Am I Being Unreasonable? (BBC)), and Siobhan McSweeney (who won Female Performance in a Comedy for Derry Girls), that had the audience in stitches.
