Noel Clarke joins 2010 Orange Rising Star Award Jury

Today Noel Clarke, winner of the Orange Rising Star Award in 2009, joined fellow jurors to cast their final votes for the 2010 Orange Rising Star Award nominee list. Orange’s accolade for up and coming talent is the only award at the Orange British Academy Film Awards to be voted for by the public. Voting opens when nominees are announced on 12 January 2010 via orange.co.uk/bafta.

Now in its fifth year, the award has set a standard for identifying talent destined for super stardom. Previous winners include James McAvoy in 2006, Eva Green in 2007, Shia LaBeouf in 2008 and Noel Clarke in 2009. Potential Rising Stars were proposed by BAFTA members and film industry insiders to create an initial long list of names. The jury, consisting of actors, casting directors, producers, media representatives and BAFTA Film Committee members, then selects the final five nominees via a secret ballot.

This year’s Orange Rising Star Award jury is made up of: Noel Clarke (actor & director), Pippa Harris (producer), Jason Isaacs (actor), Fiona Weir (casting director), Charles Gant (film journalist), Simon Morris (LoveFilm), Kate Lee (Freud Communications), Melvin Odoom (KISS 100), Nev Pierce (Empire), Hannah Marriott (Grazia), Larushka Ivan Zadeh (Metro) and Jason Solomons (The Observer). The jury was chaired by David Parfitt (producer, Chairman of BAFTA).

The Orange Rising Star Award honours a young actor or actress whose talent has inspired popular acclaim from the British public. BAFTA members and the film industry were invited to recommend up and coming performers who have appeared in several feature films, with at least one of those films released in the current awards year, 1 January to 31 December 2009, with an extension period from 1 January to 19 February 2010.

The Orange Rising Star Award was created in honour of Mary Selway, the highly respected BAFTA-winning casting director whose career spanned three decades and over ninety films before she died in 2004. She worked with notable directors such as Steven Spielberg, Roman Polanski, Clint Eastwood and Ridley Scott, contributing to the creation of some of the silver screen's most memorable characters.