Demi Moore, Mikey Madison, and Fernanda Torres Turn Up for Chanel and Charles Finch Pre-BAFTA Party

LONDON – This year’s awards season contenders and power players in the film and fashion industry gathered at private members’ club 5 Hertford Street on Saturday night for the annual Charles Finch x Chanel pre-BAFTA party.

The room was packed with BAFTA nominees. Demi Moore, who has made a major comeback with “The Substance,” arrived with her daughter Scout Willis, donning a bright green jacket from Chanel.

Brazilian national treasure Fernanda Torres came with “I’m Still Here” director Walter Salles and her son Antônio Torres Waddington. Both Moore and Torres are nominated for best actress at this year’s BAFTAs.

Across the room, Sebastian Stan, who played a young Donald Trump in “The Apprentice,” was seen having an intimate chat with one of 2024’s hottest internet boyfriends, Glen Powell; fellow “Apprentice” cast member Jeremy Strong, who played lawyer Roy Cohn in the film, and fellow best actor nominee Adrien Brody, who has already taken home the Golden Globe for his emotionally charged performance in “The Brutalist.”  

Brody accessorized his look with a Chanel brooch. The actor said the filming of “The Brutalist” was an emotionally and physically demanding experience. In the film, Brody plays a fragile but talented architect, László Tóth, who has trouble adapting to life in America, and battles drug addiction.

Felicity Jones, who gave an electrifying performance in the second half of “The Brutalist” as Erzsébet Tóth, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor and the wife of Brody’s character, said she had high hopes for the ceremony on Sunday. She is competing in the best supporting actress category alongside Jamie Lee Curtis, Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, Isabella Rossellini, and Zoe Saldaña.

Jones said she spent two years preparing for her role in the film, picking up a Central European accent and adding layers to a complex character, who is resilient, loyal, and brave.

For her last scene in the film, where she is violently dragged on the floor by Joe Alwyn’s character after confronting Guy Pearce’s, wealthy industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren, for raping her drugged-up husband, Jones said it was an intense moment, but she managed to get it done with just a few takes.

Actress Ellie Bamber, who wore a baby blue ensemble from Chanel for the dinner, said she is rooting for Sean Baker’s groundbreaking production “Anora,” which landed seven BAFTA nominations including for best film, best director, best actress in a leading role and best actor in a supporting role.

“I just think Mikey Madison was so incredible in that part. She was the only person who could play that role,” said Bamber, who plays Kate Moss in the supermodel biopic coming out later this year.

In the room, mingling with the likes of Bel Powley, who is filming Sky’s upcoming TV series “Inheritance” in Jamaica; “Bridgerton” star Hannah Dodd, and Millie Brady, who is set to play supermodel-turned-lifestyle mogul Brooke Brook in “Object Permanence,” were Chanel ambassadors Lucy Boynton and Nico Parker.

Boynton’s latest project, “A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story,” a four-part series on ITV about the last woman hanged in the U.K., is set to premiere on Monday.

The America-born British actress, who has appeared in the Chanel Coco Crush campaign, said “A Cruel Love” is very timely and pertinent to a contemporary audiences.

“We’re at a time where women’s rights are being pulled back in the United States. Situations like domestic violence, sadly, have not improved. The series was so rooted in truth, not only in Ruth’s story but in present-tense issues that women are faced with,” she said.

“There was no getting in and out of her during filming. There is so little resource, repercussion, and judicial addressing of her position. It was really difficult to step away from her,” added Boynton, who described her first time in China for the Chanel Métiers d’Art show in Hangzhou as “exquisite and ethereal.”

For Sunday’s BAFTAs, Boynton said she is rooting for Jones. “She’s such an extraordinary and singular actress. I am very impressed by her performance in ‘The Brutalist,’” she added.

Parker, daughter of actress Thandiwe Newton, meanwhile, was blown away by Madison’s portrayal of Anora “Ani” Mikheeva.

Parker is having a busy year. She was in the latest Bridget Jones movie, as the lead actress children’s babysitter. “She’s kind of a super nanny. She’s incredibly proficient and good at her job, and she’s kind of like a child whisperer, which I am not at all,” quipped Parker.

Another major project in which Parker will take the lead to come out later this year is the live-action remake of “How to Train Your Dragon.” She is set to play Astrid Hofferson, the love interest of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, the awkward son of Stoick the Vast.

Other key attendants of the high glam night included Chanel’s latest brand ambassador Lupita Nyong’o; “Glee” star Dianna Agron, who is making her first Jazz album;’Lily James; Orlando Bloom; Regé-Jean Page; Riz Ahmed; Fatima Farheen Mirza;’Antonia Desplat;’Damian Lewis;’Marisa Tomei;’Elizabeth McGovern; Jared Leto;’James Corden; Jeff Goldblum, and Tom Cruise, as well as fashion designers Tom Ford and Ozwald Boateng.