Hurt given lifetime award

Actor John Hurt has picked up the first of two lifetime achievement awards.

The veteran star said he was “very honoured” to be given the Alexander Walker Special Award for his contribution to cinema at last night’s Evening Standard British Film Awards.

He was presented with his prize by My Beautiful Laundrette director Stephen Frears.

Hurt, 72, is also due to collect the outstanding British contribution to cinema award at the Baftas on Sunday.

The Elephant Man star was joined at the Evening Standard event at the London Film Museum on the South Bank by stars including Doctor Who actor Matt Smith, Downton’s Elizabeth McGovern and Birdsong’s Clemence Poesy.

Others winners included Michael Fassbender, who picked up the best actor award for his portrayal of a sex addict in Shame and his role in Jane Eyre.

Rev star Olivia Colman won the best actress award for her performance in Tyrannosaur, beating three Oscar winners – Vanessa Redgrave, Rachel Weisz and Tilda Swinton – to the prize.

The award for best film went to Lynne Ramsay’s We Need To Talk About Kevin, about a woman’s attempt to come to terms with her son’s involvement in an American high school massacre.

Others winners at the awards, hosted by Green Wing star Stephen Mangan, included Irish film The Guard, which won the Peter Sellers award for comedy and Senna, which was named best documentary.

Hurt was modest about his award, saying: “I have had them before but I always thought I was a little bit too young, but I suppose when you’ve gone past 70 you can’t really say you’re too young.

“I feel very flattered, I feel very honoured, and I don’t feel that I deserve it. I really don’t.

“I’m really not that modest. I can be horribly arrogant. But I don’t know what makes one deserve something like that, but I’m enormously respectful of the kindness of the people who decided to give it to me.”

The Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy star named his breakthrough role as Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant as the highlight of his career.

He said: “There are many highlights. I never try to choose one thing, comparisons are odious. But I suppose if you want to choose one particular piece which changed the public’s perception of me as an actor, it was The Naked Civil Servant all those years ago back in 1974.”

He recently reprised the role in An Englishman In New York in 2009.

Hurt said: “It wasn’t quite as revolutionary as in 1974, but it was very interesting to do, I must say.

“A slightly different angle and really it was a study of old age more than anything else.”

Colman revealed she had chosen to wear Victoria Beckham to the ceremony because it meant she could eat more.

She revealed: “I’ve been looking at all her clothes and I think they’re really pretty.”

She laughed, pulling out the waist: “And you can eat in here and you don’t have to breathe in, which is always worth it.”

Colman was delighted to win for her role as a battered wife in Paddy Considine’s Tyrannosaur.

“Very excited, it’s obviously a very, very lovely feeling.

“To win things for this particular film feels pretty special because it’s probably the best part I will ever get, so it’s lovely that people have loved it just as much as I have.”

It was the latest in a run of awards for the Peep Show star.

She said: “I’d like to be cool like lots of people and go ’Yeah, it’s in the downstairs loo’, but they’re absolutely all over the mantelpiece, polished.”

A champagne reception before the ceremony was interrupted by a fire alarm, forcing the stars – including Tom Hiddleston, Poesy and Downton Abbey star Jessica Brown-Findlay – to be evacuated outside on to the street for a short time.

But everyone made light of the episode, swigging from miniature bottles of champagne and huddling together for warmth.