BAFTA has named actor and writer Ellis Howard among its 2025 Breakthrough UK cohort, spotlighting the Liverpool-born performer for his lead role in the BBC drama What It Feels Like for a Girl. The scheme, which selects 20 emerging figures across film, television and games, offers a year-long programme of mentorship, industry introductions and professional development, supported in the UK by Netflix.
BAFTA describes Breakthrough as a flagship talent initiative designed to help early-career creatives build sustainable careers, providing access to senior decision-makers and networking opportunities that are often out of reach for those without industry connections. The 2025 UK cohort spans directors, writers, performers, composers and game developers, underscoring BAFTA’s drive to support a wide range of screen disciplines.
Howard’s recognised work is What It Feels Like for a Girl, an eight-part BBC Three series adapted from Paris Lees’ memoir about a queer teenager navigating identity, exploitation and survival in early 2000s Nottinghamshire. The show follows Byron, a young person who escapes a hostile home and finds a makeshift family in the city’s club scene, while confronting abuse, sex work and systemic neglect. Critics have described the drama as intense and uncompromising in its depiction of trauma, praising Howard’s central performance as key to the show’s emotional impact.
On his BAFTA profile, Howard is described as the “face and spirit” of the series, with his work credited for helping open conversations about gender identity, class and morality. The organisation highlights his background in a working-class Liverpool family and his route into acting through free classes at local drama school Rare Studio, where his parents enrolled him to give him an outlet away from a crowded home. He previously appeared in the drama Help before taking on his first leading television role.
Howard has been clear that his creative choices are political. “Queerness and class are incredibly important to me,” he told The Hollywood Reporter, linking his performance to questions about who gets opportunity in Britain’s arts sector and who is left out. Alongside acting, he is developing new writing projects and helps run Step Up For Scousers, a family-led initiative that provides essentials to low-income households in Liverpool, reflecting the community focus that shapes his work on screen.
For BAFTA, his selection reinforces the programme’s aim to back emerging voices whose careers are shaped by questions of class, equity and representation. For Howard, the recognition offers international visibility and structured support at a moment when his debut leading role is drawing attention to some of the most contested debates in contemporary British television.
