Matthew Rhys has been named Best Actor at the Bafta Cymru Awards for his performance in the Netflix thriller The Beast in Me. The win follows his history-making night at the Emmys last month, when the Welsh actor became the first person to take two lead acting prizes in a single evening.
It is Rhys’s second Bafta Cymru, coming 29 years after his first, which he won for the Welsh-language film Be Brave. The ceremony took place at ICC Wales in Newport, where 17 awards were presented alongside two Bafta Outstanding Contribution honours.
Gabrielle Creevy won Best Actress for the second time, and Matthew Barry was named Best Writer for The Guest. Y Crwydryn won the Single Documentary award, with Rhys Edwards named Director Factual for the same programme, while Mari Grug won her first Bafta Cymru as a presenter for Mari Grug: Un Dydd Ar y Tro. Y Golau: Dwr took two awards. Burton won Feature/Television Film, Gofod Ymennydd – Brain Space won the short film prize, Amour a Mynydd won Entertainment Programme, Stori’r Iaith won Factual Series and Itopia won Children’s Programme.
The two outstanding contribution honours went to the presenter Carol Vorderman, who said she was “humbled and excited”, and to Lauren Evans from Hendy, Carmarthenshire, who received the first Outstanding Contribution to Craft award. Evans has worked on productions including Game of Thrones, King Lear, The Danish Girl, Sex Education and Lost Boys, as well as I Swear, which received six Bafta nominations earlier this year and brought her the award for Best Casting.
Evans said she was proud to represent Welsh voices and wanted to keep raising the profile of creative talent from Wales, adding that the industry is less closed than it once was but that much work remains. Bafta Cymru chair Lee Walters said the two women had taken very different paths and both thoroughly deserved to be celebrated.
