If there was an award for Most Down-to-Earth Actor at this weekend’s Baftas, Robert Aramayo would be a shoo-in. When the British rising star found out he was nominated alongside the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael B Jordan and Timothée Chalamet in this year’s Best Actor category – for his touching performance in the drama I Swear – he was a bit indisposed. “I was literally doing the dishes!” he tells me, only days away now from suiting up for the ceremony on Sunday night. “I had it up on YouTube and just couldn’t believe it when I saw my name.”
Aramayo’s had an enviably stacked first month of the year. The Hull-born 33-year-old – perhaps best known as the diplomatic Elrond in Prime Video’s Lord of the Rings series The Rings of Power – made his stage debut opposite Rosie Sheehy in Guess How Much I Love You at the Royal Court, an emotionally fraught production about a couple’s unexpected ultrasound results. One week later, he became a Bafta nominee. He was also nominated in the EE Rising Star category, where he’s competing against names including One Battle After Another’s Chase Infiniti; talk about several buses arriving at once.
The Bafta recognition launched a month of intense plate-juggling for Aramayo: a surfeit of promotional appointments to sit through in the day, then his evening play duties. In one wild case of tonal whiplash, the actor was whisked to a buzzy party in Knightsbridge – held for him and his fellow Rising Star nominees – immediately after coming off stage. If anyone has reason to be exhausted right now, it’s him.
“I’m absolutely knackered, I won’t lie to you,” he laughs. “It’s a bit of a mental time. You know when you’re at this point in your life where people are just like, ‘What about that? And what about some of this as well? Can you handle that?’ At what point is your plate a bit too full? I guess I’m going to find out.”
I Swear, set in 1980s Galashiels, charts the early life of Tourette syndrome campaigner John Davidson, who begins to develop tics in school, which then evolve into involuntary swearing and unintentionally off-colour outbursts. At the time, the world was not educated on the condition – his teachers thought he was being disruptive; his parents, rebellious. After a period of intense desolation, he was helped by two crucial figures in his life: his best mate’s mother, mental health nurse Dottie Achenbach (played by Maxine Peake), and community centre caretaker Tommy Trotter (Peter Mullan, also Bafta-nominated). While the film might sound like a slice of tear-jerking schmaltz, in truth it’s anything but – it’s a whip-smart exploration of Davidson’s frustrations, which acknowledges the uniqueness of his situation while never making him a subject of mockery or pity. The film’s five Bafta nominations – which include Outstanding British Film and Best Original Screenplay for writer/director Kirk Jones – are wholly deserved. But they’re not something Aramayo ever imagined possible when he was cast in the film back in 2024.
“The first thing on my mind was John,” he recalls. “I just think back to those early days, and me and Kirk being like, ‘How are we going to tell this story and do justice to him?’. Then I kept meeting all these incredible people who live with Tourette’s. I really, really care about them and their stories. And now here we are. I never expected any of this. It’s so lovely.”
Jones at first considered casting somebody with Tourette’s, but discovered the pressure placed upon that person would have made the task “near impossible”. Instead, he ensured the production consulted with people with Tourette’s for ultimate authenticity, and Davidson himself gave the nod to cast Aramayo. But as an actor playing someone with the condition, his responsibility was profound. It was a penny-drop moment that unlocked the role for him – that the film is about Davidson’s emotional journey; it’s not the tics that define his situation, but the responses to the tics from those around him. “It was more about settling into John’s centre of gravity, into the way John moves through the world, how John holds himself – his physicality, his body – without focusing on the obvious.”
Aramayo says Davidson is “over the moon” about the film’s Bafta nominations. “He’s so passionate about spreading awareness, about how much more education is needed and guidelines for young people and ways that we can still help. So I think anything that helps that mission, he’s excited about it.” He texts Davidson “all the time” – and if he hadn’t been rehearsing for Guess How Much I Love You, he would have spent part of the Christmas period with the real Dottie in Galashiels, too. (“I’m very, very close with her,” Aramayo says. “And we never talk about the film!”)
Aramayo’s plans for Bafta morning are simple: he’ll have a lie-in, then hit the gym to clear his mind. Then he’ll go where he’s told. Whether that will be the Bafta podium to accept an award remains to be seen, but whatever happens, Monday morning will be a far quieter affair: not only will the Baftas be out of the way, but Guess How Much I Love You ends its run this week. So a rest is on the agenda. A mixture of trepidation and relief flashes across his face.
“It’ll be radio silence!” he laughs.
I wouldn’t be so sure.
You can vote for the EE Rising Star award here, with the vote closing at 12pm on Friday 20 February
The Baftas will be broadcast on iPlayer and BBC One from 7pm on Sunday
