Backstage at the BIFA Awards: George MacKay, Mia McKenna-Bruce, Vivian Oparah, …

The British Independent Film Awards celebrated plenty of incredible films on Sunday, December 3 over here in London with “All of Us Strangers” winning seven awards including Best Picture.

The Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal film wasn’t the only picture to be highly lauded, however, as plenty of other movies were also nominated for and awarded with several gongs. “How to Have Sex” won Best Supporting Performance for Shaun Thomas (along with Mescal) and Best Lead Performance for Mia McKenna-Bruce while Molly Manning Walker was nominated for Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Debut Director, and Best Debut Screenplay. She was also nominated for her work as the director of photography on Charlotte Regan’s “Scrapper.” I got caught up with several winners and nominees on the red carpet at the BIFAS as well as the winners’ room.

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First up, I spoke to Thomas, who was nominated for his supporting turn alongside co-star Samuel Bottomley. However, Thomas insisted there was no rivalry there. “Me and Sam have worked with each other on a comedy before. It’s healthy competition. We both lift each other up. If he wins, I win. If I win, he wins, so we share each other’s wins, Thomas said before explaining what made the film a special experience for him. “From the start, it always felt really special. We all just clicked with one another. It never felt like we went through a chemistry stage. It all felt organic and came into fruition like it should have done. Once we finished filming and went to Cannes and everything, we kind of started realising ‘oh, we’ve done something really, really special here.’ He continued: “Cannes was the most special screening, we got an eight minute standing ovation. Harrison Ford only got five minutes. You just kind of stand there awkwardly, looking around at nothing. You’re just kind of ponderous thinking ‘can we sit down yet?’”

Walker, who didn’t win any of her five bids (but still, five is no mean feat), agreed: “It’s been a wild ride. I don’t know if it will ever settle in. It’s been three or fours since it’s been in my mind. I feel very lucky to have two films here tonight so just to see independent films felt very, very special. Celebrating independent films is so important because its new voices and different voices we don’t get to see and that’s something we had to champion.” I asked Walker which one person she would most like to see win out of any of the nominated people in her films and she immediately singled out McKenna-Bruce, who was over-awed when I told her later on in the evening.

She joked that she has been waiting for someone to reach out to her to say that the nomination was “a mistake.” Instead, she’s had filmmakers reaching out to her telling her how much they loved the filming. “There’s been a few. I feel big-headed saying stuff like that. Joe Cole messaged the other day, which was quite cool. Michael Ward, too — loads of people have been reaching out. Seeing them at these events and they’ve becoming and saying how much they loved the film,” McKenna-Bruce said before I caught up with her again post-win after she insisted she wasn’t going to win. “The only reason I clocked it was my name was because the ‘How to Have Sex’ table stood up. I was quite relaxed because I was like, ‘I don’t have to get up and talk,’” McKenna-Bruce told me. It was at this point that none other than Fiona Shaw, who presented Best Film, interrupted the conversation to congratulate McKenna-Bruce and tell her how wonderful she is.

“I can’t take this. I don’t know what’s happening,” an overwhelmed McKenna-Bruce said. But the big moments didn’t end there as another Irish thespian — this time in the form of Scott — bounded over to again congratulate McKenna-Bruce. McKenna Bruce could have fainted on the spot as she was hugged and kissed by Scott.

Meanwhile, Walker’s director on “Scrapper,” Regan, was also nominated for Best Director. They both lost to Andrew Haigh (“All of Us Strangers”) but Regan was intent on remaining grounded. “It’s pretty mad. I try to not think about it. It makes me so nervous to think about. I still spend, like, once a week I’ll just go to the one-star Lettrboxed reviews to remind myself that there’s good stuff but also terrible stuff, so it helps me stay grounded. One-star reviews are funny. They’re incredible,” Regan joked.

Later on in the evening, I grabbed a chat with “Rye Lane” star Vivian Oparah, who was nominated for two awards — one for Best Breakthrough Performance and one for Best Joint Lead Performance along with co-star David Jonsson. Oparah won the former award, which adds to the acclaim and plaudits that “Rye Lane” has received. The film, which is available to watch on Disney+, has been a talked-about hit all year but Oparah revealed that she was too busy having fun to notice that they were making something special. “I was like ‘I’m having so much fun.’ I wish I could have twigged into some higher power to tell me that this is going to be a special thing but I was just like ‘I love everyone making this film. I love the David, I love the cast, I love the crew. I’m just so happy, I’m just so grateful to be here,’” Oparah said.

Oparah said that while she has a new TV show coming out next year (Amazon’s “Dead Hot”), she will be getting back to her “first love” of writing: “That’s the first thing I did creatively. I used to have a book that I shared with a friend and we’d take it home one week on one week off, about these two sisters. It’s at my mum’s. Maybe I should revisit it, low-key.” Oparah and Johnson did not win Best Joint Lead Performance — that went to George MacKay and Nathan Stewart-Jarret for their roles in the queer revenge thriller “Femme.” However, Oparah encouraged other awards groups to use the “joint lead performance” category more. “I think it should be [used more]. There are so many incredible two or three-handers, which deserve more love. David is my twin in this whole thing. Going through this process with him is so special,” Oparah said.

For what it’s worth, MacKay and Stewart-Jarret agreed, too, with the latter explaining: “I feel like they should have it more. You do work in tandem so much with another actor so it feels nice to get one together.” “1917” star MacKay added: “It was a very mutual experience, the making of the film, so it feels lovely. The award reflects them. It’s a privilege to be amongst all of these films this year. This is just the icing on the cake.”

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