|
About
the Filmmakers
SHARON
MAGUIRE (Directed by) began her career in publishing as a copywriter. Maguire is a
versatile filmmaker who started her filmmaking career as a BBC and
Channel 4 television documentarian. She first directed for Channel
4’s The Media Show and BBC’s The Late Show.
She then directed the British Academy of Film and Television Arts
(BAFTA) Award-winning series Bookmark, which took a biographical
look at the world of books and authors, and the arts documentary
series Omnibus, both for the BBC.
In 2001, Maguire made her feature-film directorial debut with the smash
hit Bridget Jones’s Diary. The film was a worldwide
success, earning Renée Zellweger an Oscar® nomination
for Best Actress and spawned a successful sequel. She made a dramatic
turn with her next feature Incendiary by directing her
own screenplay. The film, which portrayed how an adulterous woman’s
life is torn apart when her husband and infant son are killed in a
suicide bombing, starred Michelle Williams and Ewan McGregor.
In 2015, Maguire launched the television production company Seven
Stories with the backing of all3media, and she’s currently writing her
first novel. She also directs commercials.
HELEN FIELDING (Screenplay by/Based on the Characters and Story Created by/Executive
Producer) is the creator of Bridget Jones, the author of the Bridget
Jones novels and part of the screenwriting team behind the Bridget Jones
movies.
Fielding first brought Bridget to life in 1995, as a 30-something
singleton trying to make sense of everything, in an anonymous column
in The Independent newspaper. The columns grew into a
series of bestselling novels: “Bridget Jones’s Diary” (1996);
“Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason” (1999); and “Bridget Jones:
Mad About the Boy” (2013), which was published in over 40 countries.
“Bridget Jones’s Baby: the Diaries” will be published in October
2016.
Fielding was born in West Yorkshire, England, and worked as a television
and newspaper journalist, where she had experiences that formed the
basis of many of Bridget’s professional misadventures. Fielding’s
first novel, “Cause Celeb” (1994), was based on Fielding’s
experiences as a journalist in East Africa. She has two children and
currently lives in London, England, and Los Angeles, California.
Fielding says that at heart, Bridget’s success stems from “the gap
between how we feel we are expected to be and how we actually are.”
DAN MAZER (Screenplay
by) is a British screenwriter, television and film producer and
comedian. He is best known as the long time writing and production
partner of Sacha Baron Cohen who he has worked with on characters such
as Ali G and Borat. Mazer co-wrote and co-produced the films Ali G
Indahouse (2002), Borat: Cultural Learnings of America
for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006) and Bruno (2009)
and executive produced The Dictator (2012).
Mazer attended Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School, where he met
Baron Cohen. He went on to study Law at Peterhouse, Cambridge University
where he was an active member of Cambridge Footlights and was vice
president from 1993 to 1994. His early work includes production roles on
The Word, The Big Breakfast and The 11
O’Clock Show. He also created, wrote, and directed Dog
Bites Man for Comedy Central.
In 2007, Mazer was nominated for an Academy Award® for
Best Adapted Screenplay for co-writing Borat: Cultural Learnings of
America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan with
Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham and Todd Phillips. In 2012,
Mazer wrote and directed the feature film I Give It a Year,
which starred Rose Byrne, Rafe Spall and Stephen Merchant, followed by
comedy pilot Love Is Relative (2014) for NBCUniversal
and 20th Century Fox. In 2016, he directed feature
film Dirty Grandpa, which starred Robert de Niro and Zac
Efron.
Working Title Films, co-chaired by TIM BEVAN & ERIC
FELLNER (Produced by) since 1992, is one of the world’s
leading film production companies.
Founded in 1983, Working Title has produced more than 100 films that
have grossed approximately $6 billion worldwide. Its films have won 12
Academy Awards® (for Tom Hooper’s The Danish
Girl, James Marsh’s The Theory of Everything,
Hooper’s Les Misérables, Joe Wright’s Anna
Karenina, Tim Robbins’ Dead Man Walking, Joel and
Ethan Coen’s Fargo, Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth and Elizabeth:
The Golden Age and Joe Wright’s Atonement) and 37
British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards, as well as
numerous prestigious prizes at the Cannes and Berlin International Film
Festivals.
The company’s commercial and critical hits include The Interpreter, About a Boy,
Notting Hill, Elizabeth, Fargo, Dead
Man Walking, Bean, High Fidelity, Johnny
English, Billy Elliot, Four Weddings
and a Funeral, Bridget
Jones’s Diary, Bridget
Jones: The Edge of Reason, O
Brother, Where Art Thou?, Love
Actually, Shaun of the Dead, Pride &
Prejudice, Nanny McPhee, United
93, Mr. Bean’s Holiday, Hot Fuzz,
Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Burn
After Reading, Frost/Nixon, Atonement, Senna,
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Contraband,
Anna Karenina, Les Misérables, About Time,
Rush, The Two Faces of January, Trash,
The Theory of Everything, Everest,
Legend, The Danish Girl and Hail,
Caesar!.
Working Title’s current slate includes Tomas Alfredson’s The
Snowman, starring Rebecca Ferguson, Michael Fassbender and Charlotte
Gainsbourg; Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver, starring Lily
James, Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm, Ansel Elgort and Jamie Foxx; and The
Little Mermaid, starring Chloë Grace Moretz.
DEBRA HAYWARD (Produced by) launched her new production company Monumental Pictures with
longtime friend and producing partner Alison Owen, in September 2014.
Prior to that as head of film at Working Title Films, Hayward served as
an executive producer for many of the company’s feature films and was
responsible for many of the companies feature film successes.
Monumental Pictures has recently moved into television production and is
in preproduction on two long-running series: Moira Buffini’s Harlots,
which tells the story of two rival brothels in 18thCentury
London and Craig Pearce’s Will, a reimagining of the lost
years of William Shakespeare.
In 2013, Hayward won a Golden Globe Award for Best Musical or Comedy for
her work on Les Misérables and was also nominated for
the Academy Award® for Best Picture. Among other
projects, she is currently working on a feature adaptation of Caitlin
Moran’s How to Build a Girl, as well as a film version of
the musical Cats, which will reunite her with director Tom
Hooper.
Monumental Pictures also recently announced Anne, Breaking
Bad alum Moira Walley-Beckett’s adaptation of Anne of
Green Gables. The eight-episode television series is a co-production
between Monumental Pictures and Northwood Entertainment.
AMELIA GRANGER (Executive Producer) serves as executive vice president of film at Working
Title U.K. Granger joined Working Title in London in 1994 as assistant
to Eric Fellner, subsequently working across a number of positions in
the company, and since 2011 has lead development and creative production
out of the U.K.
Most recently, Granger executive produced James Marsh’s The
Theory of Everything, for which Eddie Redmayne won the Oscar® and
also starred Felicity Jones; Brian Helgeland’s Legend,
which starred Tom Hardy; Stephen Frears’ The Program,
which starred Ben Foster; and Richard Curtis’About Time, which
starred Domhnall Gleeson and Rachel McAdams.
Upcoming for Granger is Tomas Alfredson’s The Snowman,
adapted from Jo Nesbø’s best-selling novel, which stars Michael
Fassbender and Rebecca Ferguson.
Among the notable recent projects she has worked on in her capacity as
an executive for Working Title Films are Balthasar Kormákur’s Everest;
Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s The World’s End; Tom
Hooper’s Les Misérables, which starred Hugh Jackman, Anne
Hathaway and Russell Crowe; Joe Wright’s Academy Award®-winning Atonement and Anna
Karenina, which starred Keira Knightley and Jude Law; Tomas
Alfredson’s critically praised Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy;
Oliver Parker’s commercial success Johnny English Reborn;
Shekhar Kapur’s well-received Elizabeth: The Golden Age;
Richard Curtis’ Love Actually and Notting
Hill; Kirk Jones’ Nanny McPhee; and Susanna White’s Nanny
McPhee Returns.
LIZA CHASIN (Executive
Producer) serves as president of US production at Working Title Films. A
graduate of Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, Chasin
began her career in the entertainment industry serving in various
capacities at a number of New York-based production companies.
Chasin first joined Working Title in 1991 as director of development and
was elevated to the role of vice president of production and
development, becoming the head of the Los Angeles office and overseeing
the company’s creative affairs in the United States in 1996.
Most recently, Chasin executive produced Joel and Ethan Coen’s Hail,
Caesar!, which starred George Clooney, Channing Tatum and Josh
Brolin; Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl, which starred Eddie
Redmayne and Alicia Vikander; Brian Helgeland’s Legend,
which starred Tom Hardy; and Baltasar Kormákur’s Everest,
based on the extraordinary true story of the 1996 disaster on the
summit, which starred Josh Brolin, Jason Clarke, Jake Gyllenhaal and
John Hawkes.
Upcoming for Chasin are Tomas Alfredson’s The Snowman,
starring Michael Fassbender and Rebecca Ferguson, and Edgar
Wright’s Baby Driver, starring Ansel Elgort and Jamie
Foxx.
Among the notable projects she has also executive produced are the
award-winning and critically-acclaimed The Theory of Everything,
which starred Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones and was inspired by Jane
Hawking’s memoir “Travelling to Infinity: My Life With Stephen”;
Richard Curtis’ About Time, which starred Rachel McAdams,
Domhnall Gleeson and Bill Nighy; Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s The
World’s End; Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables, which
starred Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway and Russell Crowe; Joe Wright’s
Academy Award®-winning Atonement and Anna
Karenina, which starred Keira Knightley and Jude Law; Asif
Kapadia’s documentary Senna; Kormákur’s Contraband;
Alfredson’s critically praised Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy;
Oliver Parker’s commercial success Johnny English Reborn;
Greg Mottola’s Paul; Paul Greengrass’ Green Zone;
Kevin Macdonald’s State of Play; and Adam Brooks’ Definitely,
Maybe.
Throughout her illustrious career, Chasin has been involved in the
development and production of acclaimed films from many prolific
filmmakers. Among her credits include Tim Robbins’ Academy Award®-winning Dead
Man Walking; the Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art
Thou? and Fargo and Roger Michell’s smash
hit Notting Hill.
She also co-produced Sharon Maguire’s Bridget Jones’s Diary,
Stephen Frears’ High Fidelity, Shekhar Kapur’s Academy
Award®-winning Elizabeth, Richard Curtis’
classic Love Actually and Paul and Chris
Weitz’s About a Boy.
Chasin currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband and two
daughters.
ANDREW DUNN, BSC (Director
of Photography) is an award-winning cinematographer, born in London and
educated at the University of Cambridge’s Christ’s College. As
director of photography on a huge variety of feature films, Dunn has
worked with many notable directors. He has won three BAFTA Awards for
Best Film Cameraman (nominated five times), winning in 1985 for Threads,
1986 for Martin Campbell’s Edge of Darkness and 1989
for Tumbledown. He earned additional BAFTA Award nominations
for his work on The Monocled Mutineer and
for Nicholas Hytner’s The Madness of King George, for
which Dunn was honored with the prestigious London Evening Standard
Award for Technical Achievement, and by his peers at the British Society
of Cinematographers with the Best Cinematography Award.
Dunn began his career at the BBC as an editor, which provided him the
means to develop, shoot, edit and dub his own projects. As a
cinematographer, he has worked with many of the industry’s most
respected directors, including Stephen Frears, Richard Eyre, Hytner,
Campbell, Robert Altman, Mick Jackson, Bill Forsyth and Dennis Potter.
Dunn shot the Oscar®-nominated drama Precious: Based
on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire. His other notable credits
include L.A. Story, The Bodyguard, The
Crucible, Practical Magic, Ever After: A
Cinderella Story, Gosford Park, The Count of
Monte Cristo, Hitch, Stage Beauty, Sweet
Home Alabama, Miss Potter, Crazy, Stupid, Love, The
History Boys, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Summer
in February, Lee Daniels’ The Butler, Hello
Carter, Effie Gray, the pilot episode of Empire,
Man Up, The Lady in the Van, Ithaca and
the upcoming Keeping Up with the Joneses.
JOHN PAUL KELLY (Production Designer) won a Primetime Emmy Award and a British Academy of
Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award for his work as production
designer on Stephen Poliakoff’s The Lost Prince, which also won
the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries, among other
honours.
He was born and educated in Ireland before moving to London to complete
a Bachelor of Arts degree in Architecture at Kingston University. Kelly
then attended the Royal College of Art in London, where he graduated
with a Master’s degree in design for film and television. His films as
production designer include Roger Michell’s Venus, which
starred Peter O’Toole and Jodie Whittaker; Enduring Love,
which starred Daniel Craig and Rhys Ifans; Richard Curtis’ About
Time, also for Working Title Films; John Michael McDonagh’s The
Guard, which starred Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle, for which he
received an Irish Film and Television Award (IFTA) nomination; Justin
Chadwick’s The Other Boleyn Girl, which starred Natalie
Portman and Scarlett Johansson, for which he was also an IFTA nominee;
Fernando Meirelles’ 360; Julian Farino’s The
Last Yellow; Charles Sturridge’s Lassie; Michael
Winterbottom’s Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story; Tim
Fywell’s I Capture the Castle; Shane Meadows’ 24
7: Twenty Four Seven, which starred Bob Hoskins; Carine
Adler’s Under the Skin, the star-making film for Samantha
Morton; and Paul Greengrass’ ground-breaking Bloody Sunday.
Kelly’s telefilm credits as production designer include James
MacDonald’s A Number; Julian Farino’s Byron,
which starred Jonny Lee Miller; and Stephen Poliakoff’s Shooting
the Past, both of which earned him Royal Television Society Award
nominations.
MELANIE ANN OLIVER, ACE (Editor) collaborated with director Tom Hooper on the
hit musical adaptation Les Misérables, for which she was a
Critics’ Choice Movie Award, Satellite Award, and an American Cinema
Editors (Eddie) Award nominee, and Academy Award®-winning The
Danish Girl. Other film credits include the true-crime
telefilm Longford, which starred Golden Globe Award winners
Jim Broadbent and Samantha Morton, for which she was honored with a
British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award; the multiple
Primetime Emmy Award- and Golden Globe Award-winning historical
miniseries Elizabeth I, for which she was a Primetime Emmy
Award nominee; the feature The Damned United, which starred
Michael Sheen and Timothy Spall; and the multiple Primetime Emmy Award
and Golden Globe Award-winning historical miniseries John Adams,
for which she was again a Primetime Emmy Award nominee and also an
American Cinema Editor’s Eddie Award nominee.
She edited Joe Wright’s Working Title Films and Focus Features
movie Anna Karenina; and his miniseries Bodily Harm and Bob
& Rose and his award-winning short films The End and Crocodile
Snap.
Oliver began her career as an assistant editor, working on such films as
Jane Campion’s An Angel at My Table and The
Portrait of a Lady, and Anna Campion’s Loaded. She
went on to edit television commercials and documentaries, the latter
including Cassian Harrison’s BAFTA Award- and Peabody
Award-winning Beneath the Veil.
She was the film editor on Sarah Gavron’s Brick Lane; Jon
Amiel’s Creation, which starred Paul Bettany and Jennifer
Connelly; Rowan Joffe’s Before I Go to Sleep; Richard
Loncraine’s telefilm The Special Relationship, which
starred Michael Sheen, Dennis Quaid, Hope Davis and Helen McCrory; Cary
Joji’s acclaimed Jane Eyre, which starred Mia Wasikowska
and Michael Fassbender; and Matthew Warchus’ Pride, which
won three British Independent Film Awards, including Best British
Independent Film, and two Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics
Association Awards, including LGBTQ Film of the Year. Up next for Oliver
is Stephen Frears’ Victoria and Abdul, which stars Judi
Dench.
STEVEN NOBLE (Costume
Designer) is a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA)
Award- and Costume Designers Guild-nominated costume designer. He
graduated with distinction from York College of Art before spending
several years designing for Jasper Conran, and later the theater, the
experience of which honed his love for all aspects of costume design.
Noble’s feature credits include James Marsh’s The Theory of
Everything, which starred Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones; Hossein
Amini’s The Two Faces of January, which starred Viggo
Mortensen, Kirsten Dunst and Oscar Isaac; Jonathan Glazer’s Under
The Skin, which starred Scarlett Johansson; Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering
Heights; and Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go, which
starred Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield.
Upcoming projects include J.A. Bayona’s A Monster Calls,
starring Felicity Jones, Liam Neeson and Sigourney Weaver, and Benedict
Andrews’ Una, starring Rooney Mara and Ben Mendelsohn.
CRAIG ARMSTRONG (Music by) was born in Glasgow, and studied composition and piano at the
Royal Academy of Music in London from 1977 to 1981.
From his base in Glasgow, Armstrong has written for film, classical
commissions and solo recordings. He has collaborated with director Baz
Lurhmann on Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge! and
The Great Gatsby, the latter of which Armstrong was nominated for a
Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media. Armstrong has
also composed the scores for The Quiet American, Ray, Orphans,
Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center, Elizabeth: The
Golden Age, Far From the Madding Crowd and Victor
Frankenstein.
Most recently, Armstrong composed the original score for the romantic
drama Me Before You, which starred Emilia Clarke and Sam
Claflin, and for Stone’s upcoming international thriller Snowden,
starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley.
For his film scores, Armstrong has been awarded two British Academy of
Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards, two Ivor Novello Awards, a
Golden Globe Award, an American Film Institute Award, a Grammy Award
and, in 2007, an Outstanding International Achievement award from BAFTA
Scotland. He was presented with ASCAP’s Henry Mancini Award in Los
Angeles in March 2016.
Armstrong has released two solo records, “Melankolic” and “Piano
Works on Sanctuary” to Massive Attack’s label. “Memory Takes My
Hand” was released on EMI Classics in 2008 and featured the violinist
Clio Gould and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Armstrong’s latest solo
album “It’s Nearly Tomorrow” was released by BMG Chrysalis in
October 2014 and featured guest collaborations from The Blue Nile’s
Paul Buchanan, Brett Anderson and Chris Botti, among others.
Armstrong has composed concert works for the RSNO, London Sinfonietta,
Hebrides Ensemble and the Scottish Ensemble. His second Scottish Opera
commission, “The Lady From the Sea,” premiered at the Edinburgh
International Festival in 2012 and won the Herald Angel Award.
Armstrong is currently a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of
Music in London and was awarded an OBE for services to the music
industry.
|