Awards banter dominates the celebrity gossip pages

Over the next few weeks, expect nothing but talk of nominations, red carpets and acceptance speeches across all of the celebrity news columns. That’s right, awards season is upon us and things kicked off this week with some big wins at the Golden Globes and the announcement of this year’s BAFTA contenders.

The Golden Globes took place on Sunday and saw David Fincher’s The Social Network go home with a slew of trophy’s including Best Picture (Drama), Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score. Other gongs on the night went to Natalie Portman as Best Actress for Black Swan, with the Best Actor accolade going to Brit star Colin Firth for his performance in The King's Speech.

However, while most of the news has related to ‘who won what’ as well as the usual ‘who wore who’, perhaps the most talked about person in all of the usual celebrity gossip forums was our very own Ricky Gervais, who was hosting the ceremony for a second year. While some were talking about how much weight the comic, writer, director and creator of The Office had lost, most were talking about his rather controversial material. Gervais’ brand of near-the-knuckle humour may not have not been to everyone’s cup of tea, it seems, as he took aim at stars including Johnny Depp, Charlie Sheen, Bruce Willis and Angelina Jolie – to name just a few.

The comedian denies this is the case and has said that all of his jokes were taken in good fun, but one actor who seems to be unamused is Robert Downey Jr. When taking to the stage to make one of the night’s announcements, the Iron Man star responded to Gervais barbed introduction by saying: “Aside from the fact it’s been mean-spirited, with mildly sinister undertones; the vibe of the show is pretty good.” He added: “It’s great to be funny but it’s better if you do it without hurting people.”

Elsewhere, there were celebrations this week as BAFTA announced its nominations for its 2011 awards. In the Best Actor category, Colin Firth will battle it out with Javier Bardem, Jeff Bridges, Jesse Eisenberg and James Franco, while the Best Actress gong will go to Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman, Noomi Rapace or Hailee Steinfeld. The Orange British Academy Film Awards 2011, which is more commonly known as The BAFTAs will take place on Sunday February 13th at the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden.