David Tennant returned to host the BAFTA Film Awards on Sunday, marking the charismatic actor’s second consecutive year as the MC of the prestigious awards ceremony. Tennant, best known for playing the tenth and fourteenth incarnations of the Doctor in the British science fiction series Doctor Who, didn’t hold back from taking jabs at Donald Trump.
Making his entrance to the Proclaimers’ hit track I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles), David Tennant kicked off his opening speech by referencing the track as well, joking that he had “walked 500 miles just to host one BAFTAs more.” He then spoke about the film The Brutalist, calling it “a film about incredible architecture.”
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But nobody anticipated his next line, as the Doctor Who star jabbed the President, saying, “In fact, it’s the boldest architecture in film this year, apart from Donald Trump’s hair in The Apprentice.”
Tennant went on to ridicule Trump while making references to the show, joking that the odds of him having watched the show were very low, saying, “It’s a 15 and it’s not on Nickelodeon.”
David Tennant didn’t stop there, comparing him to Beetlejuice. “Donald Trump… I’m worried. I’ve said his name three times. It’s like Beetlejuice – I’ve summoned him,” said Tennant.
Not remotely funny. pic.twitter.com/1SC1F88s0x
— CharlotteEmmaUK 💫 (@CharlotteEmmaUK) February 17, 2025
This isn’t the first time that David Tennant has publicly mocked Donald Trump, though. In fact, he used the BAFTAs platform to mock the President while hosting the awards show last year. Another similarity is that he took a jab at the then-Republican candidate while making references to a film that was also nominated for awards.
Tennant referred to Yorgos Lanthimos’ film Poor Things as a film in which “a child’s brain is put in an adult’s body.” His next line was a shot at Trump. “And later this year, one of those may be reelected president.”
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The BAFTAs isn’t the only awards show to have trolled Donald Trump while he’s still in office. The 69th Emmy Awards in 2017, also took shots at him, as Saturday Night Live had Alec Baldwin satirically portray Trump, mocking and ridiculing him.
The Oscars haven’t held back from trolling Trump, either. Jimmy Kimmel, who hosted the 2017 and 2024 Oscars, has always seized his moment on stage to take jabs at Donald Trump. In the first instance, he referred to Trump while joking about a controversy surrounding a speech that Meryl Streep had made about him. At the 2024 Oscars, Kimmel mocked Trump’s criminal proceedings. He responded to a negative review of him on Truth Social by saying, “Isn’t it past your jail time?”