Rebel Wilson takes a swipe at Cats and lack of female director nominees at BAFTA Film Awards

Presenting the award for Best Director, Wilson listed off the all-male nominees before adding, "I don’t think I could do what they do – honestly, I don’t have the balls."

Sam Mendes went on to win the award for 1917, beating Martin Scorsese (The Irishman), Todd Phillips (Joker), Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood) and Bong Joon-Ho (Parasite).

Notably not up for any BAFTAs was Cats, which starred Wilson as Jennyanydots and was savaged by critics upon its release in December.

Joking that her black dress was "from a funeral I just went to for the feature film Cats", Wilson continued: "Cats... strangely not nominated for any awards. I’m not sure if everyone here is across the controversy, but this year there has been a distinct lack of nominations for felines."

BAFTAs host Graham Norton also joked about the lack of diversity in this year's nominations, calling 2019 “the year when white men finally broke through” and referring to Joker - which led the pack with 11 nominations - as “the story of a white man who makes himself even whiter”.