Baftas 2024: Mia McKenna-Bruce wins EE Rising Star Award

(Credits: Video Still)

The British actor Mia McKenna-Bruce has won the EE Rising Star Award at the 77th Baftas for her performance in Molly Manning Walker’s How to Have Sex.

Beating out the likes of Phoebe Dynevor, Ayo Edebiri, and Jacob Elordi, Molly Manning Walker took to the stage to deliver an emotional speech in which she thanked the cast and crew of How to Have Sex, as well as her friends and family. “Thank you so much Bafta,” she started, adding: “To get to do the thing that I love most in the whole entire world and people be like ‘yeah, that’s kind of cool’ is amazing”.

In our three-and-a-half-star review of the film, Far Out wrote: “How To Have Sex doesn’t shout ‘consent!!’ from the rooftops. Rather, it quietly depicts the way events can feel ambiguous and confusing, even when we know, deep down, what really happened. Manning Walker’s film isn’t loaded with didacticism. Instead, it showcases a desire to present the reality of such crushing situations. There is no Hollywood drama here – only a myriad of conflicting emotions that linger with us longer than any intense resolutions would”.

Continuing, the review added: “Rarely are we given such a powerful, raw examination of British girlhood, and Manning Walker’s film only emphasises the desperate need for more female-directed stories to be told. Mixing humour with serious contemplation on the destructive yet normalised behaviours instilled in many British teenagers, How To Have Sex is a searingly powerful debut that feels more vital than ever”.

Mia McKenna-Bruce has long been working in British cinema before her transition to the big screen, with most viewers recognising the young actor from her work on the Tracy Beaker spin-off, The Dumping Ground.

McKenna-Bruce will soon be appearing in the sci-fi TV series The Marshlands from creator Katherine Scott-Williams.

Take a look at the trailer for How to Have Sex, starring McKenna-Bruce below.

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