Who Is Robert Aramayo? The BAFTA Nominee You’ve Seen Before

At the 79th British Academy Film Awards, Robert Aramayo, the Hull-born actor, was nominated for Leading Actor alongside names like Leonardo DiCaprio and Timothée Chalamet. By the end of the evening, he had done more than sit in the same category. He won.

If you felt like you’d seen him before, you’re not imagining it. You have. You just might not have realised how much ground he’s quietly covered.

Aramayo’s career , seen most recently with I Swear (2025), a British comedy-drama directed by Kirk Jones. The film tells the true story of John Davidson, a Scottish teenager living with Tourette’s syndrome in the late 1980s, long before public understanding caught up with the condition.

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and quickly gathered awards momentum. It picked up nominations for Outstanding British Film, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay and Casting. Aramayo himself not only won the BAFTA for Best Actor in a Leading Role but also took home the EE Rising Star Award. At the London Film Critics’ Circle Awards 2025, he was named Breakthrough Performer of the Year for both I Swear and Palestine 36.

His acceptance speech said more than any headline could. Standing at London’s Royal Festival Hall, visibly shaken, he gestured toward DiCaprio and admitted, “I can’t believe I am looking at people like you and am in the same category as people like you.”

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Before the applause. Before the gold mask trophy, and the “upset of the night” headlines.

There was John Davidson.

Not a fictional composite, a real man. A Tourette’s campaigner who has spent years pushing for awareness of a condition that most people still misunderstand.

Davidson, the subject of I Swear, has spoken openly about how closely Robert Aramayo studied him. He asked things like: When you have a tic, do you know where it comes from? What about triggers?

Davidson explained that certain environments intensify his tics. “Today, lots of people around… I’m feeling very,  you know, more tics in case I lash out.” Crowds. Noise. Emotion. Pressure.

That context matters because during the BAFTA ceremony, viewers witnessed this.

Tics can present as sudden vocal outbursts, including swearing. And over the first stretch of the ceremony, Davidson shouted things like “Boring!” during housekeeping announcements, and “Bullshit!” when guests were asked not to curse. At another point, while BAFTA chair Sara Putt was speaking, he yelled for people to “shut up.” Later, as Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo presented an award, a racial slur was said.

It was uncomfortable, but that discomfort is part of what I Swear is about.

Tourette syndrome isn’t tidy. It doesn’t perform politeness on command. And one of the central tensions in Davidson’s life, the one Aramayo had to understand, is the gap between intention and expression. Between who you are and what involuntarily comes out of your mouth.

Long before the BAFTA spotlight, Aramayo was already moving through some of television’s biggest franchises.

From 2016 to 2017, he played young Eddard Stark in HBO’s Game of Thrones. In 2021, he starred opposite Eve Hewson in the Netflix psychological thriller Behind Her Eyes. And since 2022, he has stepped into the fantasy universe of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power as Elrond. 

There’s also a steady film résumé beneath the blockbusters: Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals, The Empty Man, The Standoff at Sparrow Creek, Eternal Beauty, and the Discovery miniseries Harley and the Davidsons, where he portrayed William S. Harley. 

Aramayo was born on 6 November 1992 in Hull, Yorkshire. He began acting at seven, playing Bugsy Malone in a school production. After attending Wye College in Hull, he secured a place at Juilliard in New York City, relocating in 2011.

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Robert Aramayo isn’t new. He’s been in your living room for years, in Westeros, in Middle-earth, in psychological thrillers you binge-watched past midnight.