Dame Helen crowned Queen of the Baftas

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Dame Helen Mirren won the Bafta for best actress

Forest Whitaker with his best actor Bafta

Bond girl Eva Green won the Orange Rising Star Award

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Dame Helen Mirren was crowned queen of the Baftas, but it was mission unaccomplished for James Bond.

Dame Helen, 61, won best actress for her role as the monarch - while her movie was enthroned as best film.

Gallery: Fashion at the Baftas

Gallery: The Bafta winners

Worthy winners however you roll the dice

The winners at the Baftas

Casino Royale, the 21st film in the Bond franchise, only secured one of its nine film awards.

But there was a separate up-and-coming actress gong for Bond beauty Eva Green, 26, who took to the red carpet in a bizarre backcombed hair-do.

A "king" also reigned at the ceremony - the best actor prize went to US star Forest Whitaker, 45, for his powerful role as the brutal and bombastic Ugandan leader Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland.

Whitaker beat 007 star Daniel Craig, who had hoped to become the first Bond to win a Bafta.

The Departed's Leonardo DiCaprio, Peter O'Toole in Venus and Richard Griffiths in The History Boys had also been up for best actor.

The Last King of Scotland, based on the book by Giles Foden and shot in Uganda, won a total of three Baftas, including Outstanding British Film of the Year and Adapted Screenplay.

Dame Helen, 61, had always been favourite to land the prestigious best actress prize following a string of awards, including a Golden Globe, for her acclaimed role as the monarch.

She shed tears when she picked up her award, saying: "This is great.

"What an honour, especially to be nominated - just to be nominated - amongst those incredible powerhouse performances this year from women.

"I applaud them. I think they were absolutely fantastic. Write more roles for us like that please. Thank you Peter (Morgan). Keep writing."

She paid tribute to her co-star, saying: "Michael (Sheen) was fantastic as Blair" and also thanked "the rest of my wonderful Royal Family."

She also gave a special mention to "a group of people, without whom I would have never been queen.

"I refer of course to the corgis. Thank you dogs and bitches," she said.

Dame Helen also thanked Penny Dyer as voice coach for making her "less Barbara Windsor and more Elizabeth Windsor, I hope" and costume designer Consolata Boyle for "giving me the best padded knickers I have ever worn".

Breaking down in tears, she also paid tribute to actor Ian Richardson who died just days ago.

"Many years ago when I started off as an actress I had the immense good fortune to work with an actor that was so generous at sharing his craft," she said.

"He became a mentor to me, he helped me believe in myself. Ian Richardson, I'm not too sure I would be here today if it wasn't for you."

She likened her awards season to a greyhound making it past the finishing post.

"It's not about winning," she said, when asked if she was feeling confident of an Oscars victory.

"I feel sometimes like a dog at White City - 'she's coming in at 25-1, the bitch is coming in, she's going to win, she's gone and won it!"

The story of the Royal Family in the aftermath of the death of Diana, the Princess of Wales, beat ensemble piece Babel, organised-crime thriller The Departed, The Last King of Scotland and black comedy Little Miss Sunshine to best film.

Dame Helen had faced fierce competition for best actress from another Dame - Dame Judi Dench, 72, for her role as a lonely but twisted history teacher in Notes on a Scandal.

But Notes on a Scandal went away empty-handed tonight despite being nominated for three awards.

Dame Helen also beat Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada), Penelope Cruz (Volver), and Kate Winslet (Little Children) to the best actress title.

The gong is Dame Helen's first film Bafta - the Prime Suspect star already has three TV Baftas - and she is up for the best actress Oscar.

No film swept the board, but two titles - Pan's Labyrinth, the fantasy set against the backdrop of fascist Spain, and The Last King of Scotland - won three Baftas each.

British director Paul Greengrass, 51, took the best director title for United 93, the docu-style retelling of the 9/11 hijacking and passenger revolt on the United Airlines Flight 93, which failed to reach the terrorists' intended target.

On receiving the best director award, Greengrass said: "It was an amazing journey making this film. We gathered together to try and think about 9/11 and what it meant and what it means today, what it means going on from here, casting a shadow over all of our lives.

"I firmly believe that cinema must also deal with the way the world is and the dangers there are. We need it very much now."

Jennifer Hudson, 25, the American Idol finalist, was awarded best supporting actress for her role in Dreamgirls, the musical film starring Beyonce which is loosely based on the story of The Supremes - although she was not at the event.

Casino Royale only landed one gong, for best sound.

Green, who smouldered as Casino Royale's Vesper Lynd, won the Orange Rising Star award, the only award voted for by the British public.

She responded to her win in typical French fashion with: "Wow, oh la la, la la" and thanked co-star Craig in her speech.

She told the audience: "Thank you very much. It's a real honour because I'm French and it's an English award.

"I have just moved here and have had the most amazing welcome. Thank you very much."

Best supporting actor was won by American star Alan Arkin, 72, for his role as a heroin-addicted grandfather in black comedy Little Miss Sunshine.

Britons James McAvoy, who played Amin's doctor in The Last King of Scotland, Leslie Phillips, cast as an elderly actor in Venus, and Michael Sheen, who plays the Prime Minister in The Queen, lost out.

Former Top of the Pops dancer Andrea Arnold won The Carl Foreman Award for Special Achievement by a British Director, Writer or Producer in their First Feature Film for Red Road.

Her film, about a CCTV operator, won the Cannes Jury Prize last year.

Arnold said: "It's been a good year for British film, I keep hearing, so I'm very proud to be part of it. My boiler has just packed up so it's (the prize) very welcome."

Peter Morgan picked up the adapted screenplay gong for The Last King of Scotland, and said: "It was a wonderful moment watching Forest and Helen accepting awards a couple of weeks ago.

"I wondered whether there might be a sequel. Idi Amin wrote love letters to the Queen. He offered himself up as her lover, saying 'having met Mr Philip I don't really like him. Come to Kampala and meet a real man.'

"Forest, if you're listening, there might be some takers."

Whitaker dedicated his award to "my grandmother who went to the realm of my ancestors a couple of days ago".

He added: "This award is really special to me. The movie has been very important to my career and everyone who created it was from Britain, so I'm so happy that it won outstanding British film."

The Orange British Academy Film Awards, presented by new host Jonathan Ross after Stephen Fry stepped down, took place in The Royal Opera House and were broadcast on BBC1.

Those providing the glamour included Kylie Minogue, in a blue mini-dress, Sienna Miller, in a backless silver dress, and Kate Winslet.

 

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