Sophie Wilde - Hollywood Authentic

February 20, 2026

Photographs & words by GREG WILLIAMS
As told to MATT MAYTUM

Greg Williams looks back on two decades of capturing the BAFTAs, and the Cartier gems that shone on the biggest night in British film…

I’ve been an official photo-grapher of BAFTA since 2005. Due to my longstanding relationships with the British Academy and many of the talent honoured, I’ve been lucky enough to have the privilege of being the first person that the winners see when they come offstage with their award. What you get are those wonderful, honest reactions before their guard is up. I like to think it gives you authentic Hollywood, seeing how someone reacts in that moment, and the emotions of it. If you’re lucky you tend to see the inner child more than the personality. Some people come offstage stunned. They’re a rabbit in the headlights. You have to say, ‘You just won a BAFTA. Wahey!’ Over the years I’ve shot the BAFTAs when it was at the Odeon Leicester Square, the Opera House, the Royal Albert Hall, and now at the Royal Festival Hall. And each one brought something unique.

When I started my career as a photojournalist, you never got a second crack at taking a picture. You were literally capturing a moment. That has come in very useful in these situations where it is often organised madness, and you’ve only got one opportunity to get that first impression. And my pictures are often of that first impression, so my photojournalism background has definitely helped in capturing the moments. For the last decade, I’ve also had a really meaningful relationship with Cartier, often photographing actors in the moments before they head to the red carpet in their hotel suites. Bringing these two institutions together in one spread was just a lovely opportunity to show those spontaneous moments as well as the more still, posed images when you really want to put a spotlight on these beautiful Cartier creations.

I’m very inspired by the old glamour of 50s’ Hollywood. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with the book Magnum at the Movies, and the work of those legendary photojournalists. I put it all in the same bracket of reportage, whether you’re in a war zone or on a red carpet. It’s still reportage, telling stories. In both cases, it’s looking at something that’s reasonably extraordinary to people. It could be extraordinary beauty or extraordinary savagery.

RACHEL WEISZ (Above)
Rachel Weisz leaves the stage at the Royal Albert Hall after winning the Best Supporting Actress BAFTA in 2019 for her role in The Favourite. The amount of space I had backstage was lovely, it gave me room to set up lights including the backlight shaping her hair, and there were no other people backstage.

Rachel wears:
Cartier High Jewellery earrings, 18ct white gold, diamonds
Cartier High Jewellery ring, 18ct white gold, emerald, black, lacquer, diamonds

TEO YOO
Teo Yoo captured in his suite before the 2024 BAFTAs, where he was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Past Lives.

Teo wears:
Santos de Cartier cufflinks, Sterling silver
Cartier Santos watch (Large model), mechanical movement, leather strap 18ct rose gold
Cartier LOVE ring, 18ct white gold
Clash de Cartier ring (Medium model), 18ct white gold

VANESSA KIRBY
You’re always looking for ways to bring the joy close to the face. There was something about covering her eye that I liked. I liked the shape of the picture, and there’s a bit of intrigue to it.

Vanessa wears:
Cartier Juste un Clou earrings (Small model), 18ct yellow gold
Cartier Love ring (Small model), 18ct yellow gold

LILY COLLINS
Lily Collins captured in her suite at the Savoy Hotel ahead of the 2024 ceremony. I’m often trying to come up with little things that will light a fuse. It wasn’t planned – and there’s a room service trolley, and I suggested, ‘Eat a chip.’ These things are very fast. I try not to give them much thought. The less thought I give them, the more authentic they are.

Lily wears:
Cartier Diamond earrings, 18ct white gold, diamonds
Cartier Diamond ring, 18ct white gold, diamonds

AUSTIN BUTLER
It’s lovely when the person coming offstage is someone who is really comfortable with me, which was the case with Austin Butler. We have a pre-existing friendship, so there’s a real warmth to the shot. Austin was captured embracing Cate Blanchett after he was awarded the Best Actor BAFTA for his role in Elvis at the 2023 ceremony (Blanchett also won that year for her role in Tár).

Austin wears:
Cartier Juste un Clou bracelet, 18ct white gold
Cartier Love Ring, 18ct white gold, ceramic, diamonds
Panthère de Cartier cufflinks, 18ct white gold, diamonds, emeralds, onyx

Cartier celebrates BAFTA, Tom Hiddleston

DAVID OYELOWO / TOM HIDDLESTON
David Oyelowo and Tom Hiddleston both presented an award at the 2021 ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall, which took place during lockdown. These were both shot during rehearsals; there was no audience for the show due to Covid restrictions, so I had the time and space to be able to give them some decent portraits.

David wears:
Pasha de Cartier watch, 41mm, automatic movement,18ct yellow gold, leather
Engraved Sodalite Double C Logo cufflinks, Sterling silver, palladium finish, sodalite

Tom wears:
Cartier Santos-Dumont watch (Extra large model), Hand-wound mechanical movement, 18ct rose gold, steel, leather
Santos de Cartier cufflinks, Sterling silver, palladium finish

SOPHIE WILDE
Sophie Wilde pictured at her first BAFTA ceremony in 2024, where she was nominated for the Rising Star Award.

Sophie wears:
Pluie de Cartier earrings, 18ct white gold, diamonds
Cartier Diamond Collection bracelet, 18ct white gold, diamonds
Cartier Juste un Clou ring, 18ct white gold, diamonds
Cartier Juste un Clou ring (Small model), 18ct white gold

RAMI MALEK
Rami Malek at his suite at the Ritz Hotel in 2023. Rami has a real, old-school Hollywood look. Because the Ritz is so timeless, apart from a digital dial on the telephone and the fact that Rami is obviously of today, there’s nothing in that photo that you couldn’t have shot in the ’60s, and I love that.

Rami wears:
C de Cartier sunglasses, Combined black and gold, matte ruthenium-finish frame, smooth golden-finish bridge, dark grey lenses
Reflection de Cartier brooch/earrings, 18ct white gold, diamonds
Tank Française watch (Large model), Automatic mechanical movement, steel
Trinity ring (Small model), 18ct white gold, 18ct yellow gold, 18ct rose gold
Pasha de Cartier cufflinks, Sterling silver, palladium finish, synthetic spinel

Photographs & words by GREG WILLIAMS
As told to MATT MAYTUM

Dispatches

SOPHIE WILDE & HARRIS DICKINSON

September 5, 2024

hollywood authentic, venice dispatch, venice film festival, greg williams

DISPATCH: SOPHIE WILDE & HARRIS DICKINSON BABYGIRL
Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS

As she looks out of Venice’s Grand Canal wearing a 16Arlington dress teamed with Church brogues, actor Sophie Wilde contemplates her ‘surreal’ 13 months which started with the release of Australian horror hit Talk To Me in July 2023 and culminated with her attending the premiere of one of the buzziest movies at the city’s film festival this year, Babygirl. Wilde attended the red carpet in a Loewe custom look with archive Cartier jewellery from the year she was born. A special moment for the Sydney-bred actor who has been pinching herself since the rave reviews for Talk To Me. ‘We all knew we’d made something special, and that it was something that we were all super-proud of. But for it to have this international response was totally beyond our comprehension. It’s interesting that one project can really shift so many things in such a dramatic way. I’ve signed with US agents and interesting roles are coming my way. So it’s definitely been a shift.’

harris dickinson, sophie wilde, babygirl

One of those roles is Babygirl. Telling the story of a CEO (Nicole Kidman) who embarks on an affair with her younger intern (Harris Dickinson) and explores the spectrum of female desire, the erotic drama sees Wilde play an executive assistant to Kidman. She is a key player in a chess game of power moves. ‘It’s definitely a very interesting conversation that Halina is playing with,’ Wilde says, ‘in the sense of women of different generations, and how they approach their womanhood. And their relationship to power and progression.’

Wilde was sent the script after impressing Reijn with her work in Talk To Me and was immediately hooked on the project after a meeting with the writer-director. ‘I think Halina’s a literal genius. She’s amazing,’ she ethuses. ‘She’s curated such an incredible film. I think what was interesting to me was the characters. They all felt incredibly infallible. There was a sense of moral ambiguity around everyone which I really liked. It was like, no one was right or wrong. It was just complex, like human beings are, and how relationships are.’

The gig also offered the opportunity to work with Kidman, who Wilde describes as ‘very much an Australian icon’ and a trailblazer for Antipodean talent breaking into Hollywood. ‘Watching someone like Nicole work is such a privilege. She’s honestly such a master of her craft, and such a powerhouse. I feel like I’ve very much grown up watching her films – Moulin Rouge is literally one of my favourite films. So it’s amazing to be able to work with someone who’s been such an inspiration. And to have someone of her calibre just there, supporting you, and backing you, and championing you – it’s really special.’
Babygirl is very much the kind of work Wilde wants to do going forward, she says. ‘There’s something so interesting about doing smaller, auteur-driven work that is very character-driven.’ Before she arrived in Venice Wilde finished shooting Watch Dogs, an adaptation of the video game which she describes as unlike anything she’s done before. And then there’s the possibility of her returning to Talk To Me 2. ‘We’ll have to wait and see,’ she teases. ‘All I know is that I find it exciting, that range of creative spaces you can enter.’

Babygirl is released in cinemas later this year
Read our review of Babygirl here

Screening Room

BABYGIRL

August 31, 2024

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Halina Reijn’s erotic drama has caused a stir at Venice thanks to its frank, female-gaze portrayal of desire and the nuances of power. Though it shares some similarities with Secretary, Fatal Attraction and even Fifty Shades Of Grey, Babygirl is buzzy because it unflinchingly explores the ‘orgasm gap’ between men and women, and paints a picture of a complex, contradictory middle-aged woman’s lust without anyone’s bunny being boiled.

Nicole Kidman stars as tech CEO Romy who has it all together: a loving theatre director husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas), two lovely daughters, two sprawling houses (a Manhattan apartment and a country mansion), the respect of her colleagues and pots of money. A glass ceiling breaker and ballbuster, Romy has no problem asking for what she wants in boardrooms or cosmetic clinics but struggles to do so in bed. Opening on her climaxing astride her spouse, Romy sneaks off to another room post-copulation to masturbate over Daddy kink porn. There, in the darkness, on the floor, her feral orgasm is different and real compared to the performance she has put on for her partner. What Romy presents to her family and the world is very different to what she wants, and even then she’s not entirely sure what that is. Which is why new intern, Samuel (Harris Dickinson) intrigues and shocks her when he seems to instinctively sense exactly what she might need. A bold, self-assured young man who can control a raging dog in the street and tells her ‘I think you like to be told what to do’, Samuel whispers ‘good girl’ to her in a restaurant when she glugs a full glass of milk that he sends over to her table.

Romy is a strong, powerful woman who loves her husband, but she’s also a product of her commune upbringing, horny and looking for validation of some of her darker fantasies. Both personas coexist, the spectrum of sexual need explored as the CEO and the intern embark on a push-pull affair tinged with BDSM but is also vulnerable, protective, needy, greedy, bashful and silly. Romy may kneel to lick a sweet from Samuel’s hand or milk from a saucer at his feet, but she will also cling to him as they sway to George Michael’s Father Figure and cuddle like family in a hotel suite bed. When he gives her her first non-masturbatory orgasm the growl she lets out into a grubby carpet is one of liberation and discovery.

The traditional assumption in this kind of cinematic trajectory is that someone will lose their life (literally or figuratively), that danger is associated with such unfettered hunger. But Reijn confounds expectation by metering out no punishment. Rather the protagonists discover something of themselves and use their individual power to move forward – whether that’s the ambitious exec assistant Esme (Talk To Me’s Sophie Wilde), a collaborative Jacob or Romy herself. The only person getting shafted in this tale is a predatory exec who tries to leverage his power for sex. As Samuel says at one point to another character; ‘that’s an outdated view of sexuality’.

Modern, sex-positive and optimistic, Babygirl is sure to prompt post-credit discussion and possibly even small revolutions in marital beds.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Babygirl is in cinemas now

Gongs/Premieres

CARTIER AT THE BAFTAs