Celebrating the wit-laden genius of Stephen Fry as the host for the past 11 BAFTA shows.
2016 marks the 11th year in which Stephen Fry has lent his acerbic wit and classically British humour to the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTAs) in Leicester Square. Although not as naughty as Ricky Gervais, Fry somehow manages to subtly take the piss out of the whole of Hollywood, whilst still being completely affable, and the look on everyone's faces is always priceless.
Here's 8 times Stephen Fry killed it (sometimes very controversially) as the BAFTAs host. 1. When he made a thinly veiled Donald Trump dig Last night Fry congratulated Bryan Cranston on his role in Trumbo and quipped: 'I believe you're already planning on making a modern day sequel, where bigotry stalked the land and progressive throught is banned throghout America. Working title: Trumpo.' We like what he did there.
2. When he upset the whole of Twitter As of Monday 15th Feb (the night after the 2016 BAFTAs) Fry is without a Twitter account. The host deleted his account after receiving major backlash from trolls who didn't take kindly to his quip about Jenny Beavan, his close friend who won Best Costume Designer for Mad Max. When Beavan accepted her gong in a very dressed-down outfit, Fry joked that: ‘only one of the great cinematic costume designers would come to an awards ceremony dressed as a bag lady.’ Which would be a burn except Fry later posted a photo of him and Jenny together to prove how chummy they are, but then deleted his Twitter after a bit of a rant. Come back Stephen - we think you're hilarious.
3. When he turned the air blue in 2002 'As the Archbishop of Canterbury likes to say on these occasions, that's enough tedious wank from me, let's party' he quipped in a send-off back at the BAFTAs in 2002. This (along with a few other close-to-the-bone-quips) resulted in a few complaints to the BBC via Ofcom that year. Oops.
4. When he let it all out in 2002 2002 was the year Fry really threw caution to the wind; the comedian planted a full-on smooch on the lips of legendary actor Ian McKellen when he welcomed him to the stage (the two are both openly gay) leading the chair of the parliamentary Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport to complain to the Daily Mail that Fry was apparently 'dragging the BAFTAs into the gutter'. (Ooh-er). He also joked about being a rent boy: 'I don't think my months of research on the streets of Soho were wasted, and nor do my clients'.
5. When he revealed that he's a fan of *that* American Pie scene Back in 2013, Fry was talking about the mind-bending psychological thriller film Life Of Pi and mentioned that he'd got it confused with the movie American Pie, you know, with Stifler's Mum and loads of sex. 'Sadly it featured no young men pleasuring themselves with fruit filled pastries' he said, 'I suppose, we'll have to wait for the director's cut'. Big LOLs.
6. When he laughed at all the celeb names On Cuba Gooding Jr. Fry said: 'They named a country, a cigar and a missile crisis after him' (haha) and when talking about Penelope Cruz he commented that '[she's] so popular that they’ve named a beach, a park and a leisure activity after her.' Cue lots of confused celebs.
7. When he grammar-corrected a BAFTA winner on-stage Cambridge-educated Fry just couldn't help himself during the 2014 BAFTAs when David O'Russell collected his Best Original Screenplay award with an emotional, but grammatically incorrect acceptance speech - which you can see Fry rip apart in the vid below...
8. When he made an actual joke about 12 Years A Slave It's not often you can put put LOL and the film 12 Years A Slave in the same sentence, but in 2014 Stephen Fry managed just that. Talking about his reaction on seeing the flick he said: 'It filled me with a mixture of shock, fear and horror that I haven’t experienced since seeing myself naked in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.' Ahhh Stephen.