Welsh actress Joanna Scanlan has won leading actress at the 2022 BAFTA awards, for her role as Mary in After Love and she even spoke in Welsh in her acceptance speech.
Known for her roles in the likes of ‘The Thick of It’, ‘Getting On’ and ‘No Offence’, the 60-year-old gave an impressive and emotional performance as Mary Hussain, a widow who discovers her late husband’s secret family, in After Love.
Joanna moved to Wales from the Wirral when she was three years old and considers herself to be Welsh and to “have lived a Welsh life”.
Joanna was brought up in the Vale of Clwyd before moving to Bangor more than thirty years ago when her parents both enrolled as mature students at Bangor University – her father studied Fine Art and her mother studied History.
She has lived in Bangor on and off over the intervening years and most of her family are now Anglesey based. Despite crediting her Welsh as “very very very limited” Joanna included Welsh in her acceptance speech saying diolch yn fawr iawn (thank you very much).
She said: “Diolch yn fawr iawn as we say in my country! BAFTA thank you so much…some stories have surprising endings don’t they.”
She beat a field including Lady Gaga, fellow musician-turned-actress Alana Haim, and Emilia Jones, the daughter of Welsh TV presenter Aled Jones.
Joanna went on to thank the film’s writer and director Aleem Khan, the crew of the film, and said the film was made with “extreme love, blood, sweat, and tears.”
Photo: Getty Images
