A prize of their own

What are the BAFTAs? It’s amazing how few people know. The short answer is that the BAFTAs -- or the British Academy Film Awards -- are the English Oscars. But let’s look at it in more detail: What do the BAFTAs and the Oscars have in common, and how are they different? Having attended the BAFTAs this year (and being a lifelong viewer of the Oscars), screenwriter, novelist and sketch artist Daniel Wallace is in a nearly perfect position to compare and contrast.

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Red carpet: check. Paparazzi: check. Stars: You bet! But here’s something you see at the BAFTAs you may not see at the Oscars: celebrities smoking. Inside. OK, not in the actual auditorium seats, but everywhere else. Even though every pack of cigarettes has some scary warning on it like SMOKING KILLS and YOU WILL GET LUNG CANCER. And the paparazzi might be a bit better-educated in Los Angeles than they are in London: One of them asked my wife for her autograph. Thought she was Ava Gardner.

One big and very pleasant difference: The BAFTA ceremony lasted only two hours. Why? Because there weren’t any of those awful “jokes” presenters tell at the Oscars. This meant that Peter Jackson made lots of quick trips to the stage to pick up his awards. So if he wins tonight, he will have had lots of practice.

Still, it is an exhausting experience. Being a noncelebrity in a room full of celebrities is like being the only person wearing clothes at a nudist colony: You’re not supposed to stare, but you can’t help it, and the effort required to act as though everything is perfectly natural is enormous.