Lady Gaga: Nomination for second best leading actress Bafta a ‘dream come true’

The pop star was joined by five first-timers in the top female category.

Lady Gaga: Nomination for second best leading actress Bafta a ‘dream come true’ (Jonathan Brady/PA) (PA Archive)

Lady Gaga says it has been “an absolute dream come true” to be nominated for her second leading actress Bafta award but that she still has “a long way to go in the space of film making”.

The pop star was given the nod alongside Joanna Scanlan, Emilia Jones, Renate Reinsve, Tessa Thompson and musician Alana Haim all of whom are first-time nominees in the top female category.

Multi-award winning British actress Olivia Colman was notably absent from the list with her starring role in The Lost Daughter.

It comes as Bafta chair Krishnendu Majumdar said he wanted to “level the playing field” at this year’s awards nominations by shining a “spotlight” on a range of British films.

A total of 19 out of the 24 performance categories are first-time Bafta nominees, according to Bafta co-chair Sara Putt.

Thanking the organisation for her nod, given for her role as Patrizia Reggiani in Ridley Scott’s House Of Gucci, Gaga paid tribute to her fellow nominees and her production team.

“I can’t believe I was nominated for a @bafta alongside such INCREDIBLE actors,” she wrote on Instagram.

“I have a long way to go in the space of film making and I cherish the ability to hone my craft with such support and love.

“This is an unexpected and absolute dream come true. Thank you to all Bafta voters and people all over the world for embracing the opera of a REAL life story.

“Thank you for celebrating women’s stories and thank you Ridley and Giannina Scott for supporting us in telling them, I love you all…and I love you ITALY.”

Haim, who made her big screen debut in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza, said she was “freaking out” at the news.

“This is such an honor and I’m so excited to be nominated alongside such amazing women,” the singer wrote online.

“The UK has embraced me and my siblings from the beginning so I can’t explain how much this means to me. Freaking out over here!”

Haim performs alongside her two sisters Este and Danielle in the US rock band, Haim.

Scanlan said she was “jumping for joy” following her nomination for her performance in Aleem Khan’s feature-length debut, After Love.

“When you are 60-years-old it feels like that horizon has moved. The horizon has gone a little bit further into the distance and I am hoping that I am going to get a new lease of life,” she told the PA news agency.

Jones, who played the leading role in film Coda, said she was “grateful” for the recognition after working “so hard” on the film.

The 19-year-old, who trained for nine months with American Sign Language, told the PA news agency she was asleep during the live announcement because “never in a million years” did she think she would be considered “against such talented nominees”.

Thompson and Reinsve also thanked Bafta for their nods on social media, with the latter admitting, like Haim, that she was “freaking out”.

In other categories, sci-fi epic Dune, The Power Of The Dog and Belfast led nominations for awards.

Dune, directed by Denis Villeneuve and based on Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel, featured a star-studded ensemble cast including Timothee Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson and Oscar Isaac, and received the most nominations overall with 11, including original score, casting, cinematography and best film.

New Zealand director Jane Campion’s dark western, The Power Of The Dog, received eight nominations, among them best director for her, best film, and three nominations across the acting categories.

Sir Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical film Belfast, starring Jude Hill, Jamie Dornan and Caitriona Balfe and which focuses on the Troubles in Northern Ireland, has six nominations, among them best film.

Majumdar has said “you couldn’t get three more different films” leading the pack of nominations.

Speaking to the PA news agency, he said: “I think that shows a real appetite for different types of stories.

“I think the key thing we were trying to do as an academy was to make sure our members watched as many films as possible, trying to level the playing field, that different films had the opportunity to be seen and therefore the chance to be nominated”.

The Bafta film nominations were announced on Thursday by AJ Odudu and Tom Allen from Bafta’s London headquarters.

This year the annual film awards celebrates their 75th anniversary and will see Australian actress and comedian Rebel Wilson host the ceremony being held at London’s Royal Albert Hall on March 13.