Ben Stiller Honored by BAFTA

The Los Angeles chapter of BAFTA held their annual Britannia Awards last night honoring five individuals for their outstanding contributions to the arts. Unlike your typical awards show, the event is not broadcast to the public and the honorees know well ahead of time that they'll receive a statue, lending to a generally light-hearted and fun outlook on the evening's ceremony.

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As you might expect, comedian Ben Stiller humbly approached his "Excellence in Comedy" accolade with a bit of his trademark, dry humor. "It's important to get and give awards and to strive to win awards," Ben joked with ET. "I feel as long as people are giving awards or getting awards, for human interaction, it just helps people. It helps the people that are giving the awards feel good that they've done something for someone else so it's kind of a mutual ego-gratification."

In addition to Stiller, actress Helena Bonham Carter was named "British Artist of the Year," actor Warren Beatty took home the "Stanley Kubrick Award for Excellence in Film," David Yates accepted the "John Schlesinger Award for Excellence in Directing" and John Lasseter was awarded the "Albert R. Broccoli Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment."

The Good Wife's Alan Cumming served as master of ceremonies for the night, a task he's no stranger to. The Scot says he prefers the easygoing feel of the Britannia's, calling it "a celebration" without feeling like a big Hollywood "marketing campaign."

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"I love it. I like these awards because there's no tension. It's like a celebration. There's no churning of stomachs and everybody knows they've won. It's more a celebration of a body of work as well, not because it's for one movie."