Part of BAFTA 2026 featuring Paul Thomas Anderson, Jessie Buckley, Sean Penn, Wunmi Mosaku, and Ryan Coogler.
Rise to Fame
Young Ned Stark is a cameo with good cheekbones. Elrond is a supporting role in an expensive franchise. For most of his career, Aramayo made other people's projects look better without getting the credit. I Swear changed that. He plays real-life Tourette's campaigner John Davidson in Kirk Jones' 2025 film, set in 1980s Scotland where the syndrome barely registered as a diagnosis. No franchise. No famous costar. The performance earned him a BAFTA before most people knew his name.
In the Spotlight
At the 2026 BAFTAs, he beat Leonardo DiCaprio and Timothée Chalamet for Best Actor, which for a 33-year-old from Hull who most people knew as an elf, was a genuine upset. He also took the Rising Star Award the same night, the first person to win both in a single ceremony. He won Best Actor without an Oscar nomination, something only Jamie Bell had managed since 2000. He signed with CAA within days of the win. The industry is paying attention.
Side Notes
He grew up in Hull, started acting at 7 in a school production of Bugsy Malone, and joined Hull Truck Youth Theatre at 10. In 2011 he won one of 18 places at Juilliard, where his lead in A Clockwork Orange got him his first film role before his first professional credit. He's of English and Basque descent. Twenty years of building the craft in rooms nobody was watching, and then a BAFTA.