Dancing Queens

In 1989, Stephen Daldry worked as a freelance reader of unsolicited manuscripts for Literary Manager Nicholas Wright in the Scripts Department at the Royal National Theatre. In July of that year, he directed a Dadaist/expressionist production of "Judgement Day," a play by Odon von Horvath, at the Old Red Lion in London.

Often described as a genius, Russell T. Davies is one of the leading British television writers of his generation, who specializes in emotional dramas, frequently with gay and sex-related adult themes. After graduating from Oxford University, he initially took a BBC Television director's course in the 1980s, and briefly moved in front of the cameras to present a single episode of the BBC's version of Play School (1964) in 1987, before deciding that his abilities lay in production rather than presenting.

Working for the children's department at BBC Manchester, from 1988 to 1992 Davies was the producer of summertime activity show Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go and Do Something Less Boring Instead? (1973) which ironically showcased various things children could be doing rather than sitting at home watching the television. While serving as the producer of "Why Don't You?" he also made his first forays into writing for television, creating a children's sketch show for early Saturday mornings on BBC One called Breakfast Serials (1990).

In 1991, Davies wrote his first television drama, a six-part serial for children entitled Dark Season (1991) for BBC One, which effectively comprised of two different three-part stories based around a science-fiction / adventure theme. The production was very low budget but nevertheless successful, and noteworthy for showcasing the acting talents of a young Kate Winslet. Two years later he wrote another equally well-received science-fiction drama in the same vein, entitled Century Falls (1993).

In 1992, Davies moved to Granada Television, producing and writing for their successful children's hospital drama Children's Ward (1989). One of the episodes Davies wrote for this series won a BAFTA Children's Award for Best Drama in 1996. At Granada he also began to break into working for adult television, contributing an episode to the ITV crime quiz show Cluedo (1990), a programme based on the popular board game of the same name, in 1993, and also working on the daytime soap opera Families (1990). He continued working on "Children's Ward" until 1995, by which time he was already consolidating his position outside of children's programming with the comedy The House of Windsor (1994) and camp soap opera Revelations (1994).

After a brief stint as a storyliner on ITV's flagship soap opera Coronation Street (1960) (for which he later wrote the straight-to-video spin-off Coronation Street: Viva Las Vegas! (1997)) and contributions to Channel 4's Springhill (1996), the following year Davies wrote and created the hotel-set mainstream period drama The Grand (1997) for prime time ITV, winning a reputation for good writing and high audience figures. He contributed to the first series of the acclaimed ITV drama Touching Evil (1997), before beginning his fruitful collaboration with the independent Red Productions company.

Davies first series for Red was the ground-breaking adult gay drama Queer as Folk (1999), which caused much comment and drew much praise when screened on Channel 4 in early 1999. A sequel followed in 2000 and a US version, which still runs successfully in that country to this day, was commissioned by the Showtime cable network there. In 2001 he followed this up with another popular mini-series with a gay theme for Red, Bob & Rose (2001), this time screened on the mainstream ITV channel in prime time. After writing an episode for a Red series he had not created, Linda Green (2001) (shown on BBC1) in early 2003 he wrote the religious telefantasy drama The Second Coming (2003) starring Christopher Eccleston, which cemented his position as one of the UK's foremost writers of TV drama.

Davies other work includes another Red mini series for ITV, Mine All Mine (2004), a series about the life of Casanova (2005) which made a star of David Tennant and the screenplay for a film version of the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (1998) cheating scandal. Most famously, he is the chief writer and executive producer of the BBC's big budget revival of Doctor Who (2005), as well as the spin-offs Torchwood (2006), The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007) and Wizards vs. Aliens (2012). He subsequently created more gay drama with Cucumber (2015) and the sex-themed documentary series Tofu (2015). He has also written A Very English Scandal (2018), which stars the legendary Hugh Grant as gay Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, whose political career was destroyed by conspiracy to murder allegations. He then won further acclaim with his serial It's a Sin (2021), written about the HIV/AIDS crisis which swept through the gay community in the 1980s.

Outside of television and film, Davies' prose work has included the novelization of Dark Season (1991) and an original "Doctor Who" novel, "Damaged Goods", for Virgin Publishing in 1996.

Davies lives in Manchester, UK.

Stephen Beresford was born in 1972 in London, England, UK. He is an actor and writer, known for Pride (2014), Tolkien (2019) and The Last of the Haussmans (2012).

Born in Keighley, Bradford, West Yorkshire. He attended Malsis School in Cross Hills Ermysted's Grammar School at Skipton, later he attended Sedbergh School in Cumbria.

He has read English at St Peter's College, Oxford and graduated from the Arts Institute at Bournemouth.

In 2009 he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Slumdog Millionaire, also winning a Golden Globe and a BAFTA award.

Dean Craig was born on 25 October 1974 in London, England, UK. He is a writer and producer, known for Death at a Funeral (2010), Death at a Funeral (2007) and Love Wedding Repeat (2020).

Peter Howitt was born on 5 May 1957 in Manchester, England, UK. He is an actor and director, known for Sliding Doors (1998), Dangerous Parking (2007) and Johnny English (2003). He has been married to Lorraine since 5 August 2001. They have two children.

Garth Jennings was born on 4 March 1972 in Epping, Essex, England, UK. He is a director and actor, known for Sing (2016), Son of Rambow (2007) and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005).

John Madden was born on 8 April 1949 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, UK. He is a director and producer, known for Shakespeare in Love (1998), The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) and Proof (2005).

Nigel Cole was born in 1959 in Launceston, Cornwall, England, UK. He is a director and actor, known for Calendar Girls (2003), Saving Grace (2000) and A Lot Like Love (2005). He has been married to Kate Isitt since 1 January 2000. They have two children. He was previously married to Sally Brampton.

Phyllida Lloyd was born on 17 June 1957 in Bristol, England, UK. She is a director and producer, known for Mamma Mia! (2008), The Iron Lady (2011) and Herself (2020).

Kirk Jones was born on 31 October 1964 in Bristol, England, UK. He is a director and writer, known for Waking Ned Devine (1998), Everybody's Fine (2009) and What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012).

Actor Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes was born on December 22, 1962 in Suffolk, England, to Jennifer Anne Mary Alleyne (Lash), a novelist, and Mark Fiennes, a photographer. He is the eldest of six children. Four of his siblings are also in the arts: Martha Fiennes, a director; Magnus Fiennes, a musician; Sophie Fiennes, a producer; and Joseph Fiennes, an actor. He is of English, Irish, and Scottish origin.

A noted Shakespeare interpreter, he first achieved success onstage at the Royal National Theatre. Fiennes first worked on screen in 1990 and then made his film debut in 1992 as Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1992), opposite Juliette Binoche. 1993 was his "breakout year". He had a major role in the controversial Peter Greenaway film The Baby of Mâcon (1993), with Julia Ormond, which was poorly received. Later that year he became known internationally for portraying the amoral Nazi concentration camp commandant Amon Goeth in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993). For this he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. He did not win, but did win the Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award for the role, as well as Best Supporting Actor honors from numerous critics groups, including the National Society of Film Critics, and the New York, Chicago, Boston, and London Film Critics associations. His portrayal as Göth also earned him a spot on the American Film Institute's list of Top 50 Film Villains. To look suitable to represent Goeth, Fiennes gained weight, but he managed to shed it afterwards. In 1994, he portrayed American academic Charles Van Doren in Quiz Show (1994). In 1996, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Count Almásy the World War II epic romance, and another Best Picture winner, Anthony Minghella's The English Patient (1996), in which he starred with Kristin Scott Thomas. He also received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations, as well as two Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award nominations, one for Best Actor and another shared with the film's ensemble cast.

Since then, Fiennes has been in a number of notable films, including Strange Days (1995), Oscar and Lucinda (1997), the animated The Prince of Egypt (1998), István Szabó's Sunshine (1999), Neil Jordan-directed films The End of the Affair (1999) and The Good Thief (2002), Red Dragon (2002), Maid in Manhattan (2002), The Constant Gardener (2005), In Bruges (2008), The Reader (2008), co-starring Kate Winslet, Kathryn Bigelow's Oscar®-winning The Hurt Locker (2008), Clash of the Titans (2010), Mike Newell's screen adaptation of Charles Dickens'Great Expectations (2012), with Helena Bonham Carter and Jeremy Irvine, and Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).

He is also known for his roles in major film franchises such as the Harry Potter film series (2005-2011), in which he played the evil Lord Voldemort. His nephew, Hero Fiennes Tiffin played Tom Riddle, the young Lord Voldemort, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009). Ralph also appears in the James Bond series, in which he has played M, starting with the 2012 film Skyfall (2012).

In 2011, Fiennes made his directorial debut with his film adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy political thriller Coriolanus (2011), in which he also played the title character, opposite Gerard Butler and Vanessa Redgrave. Fiennes has won a Tony Award for playing Prince Hamlet on Broadway.

In 2015, Fiennes played a music producer in Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash (2015), starring opposite Tilda Swinton and Matthias Schoenaerts, and in 2016, Fiennes starred in Joel and Ethan Coen's Hail, Caesar! (2016).

Since 1999, Fiennes has served as an ambassador for UNICEF UK.

Sharon Maguire was born on 28 November 1960 in Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire, Wales, UK. She is a director and producer, known for Bridget Jones's Baby (2016), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) and Incendiary (2008).

Sam Taylor-Johnson was born on 4 March 1967 in London, England, UK. She is a director and producer, known for Nowhere Boy (2009), Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) and Back to Black (2024). She has been married to Aaron Taylor-Johnson since 21 June 2012. They have two children. She was previously married to Jay Jopling.

Gillies MacKinnon was born on 8 January 1948 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK. He is a director and writer, known for Small Faces (1995), Trojan Eddie (1996) and The Playboys (1992).

Frank Cottrell Boyce is one of the most respected screenwriters working in the English film industry. After serving as the television critic for the magazine "Living Marxism," he met Michael Winterbottom and the two collaborated on "Forget About Me" (1990). Winterbottom had made five more films based on Boyce's screenplays, "Butterfly Kiss" (1995), "Welcome to Sarajevo" (1997), "The Claim" (2000), "24 Hour Party People" (2002), "Code 46" (2003), and "A Cock and Bull Story" (2005). Boyce has also collaborated with the directors Danny Boyle "Millions" (2004), Alex Cox's "Revenger's Tragedy" (2002), and Anand Tucker "Hilary and Jackie" (1998).

In the words of film critic Roger Ebert, whom he interacted online at Ebert's old CompuServe chat group in the early 1990s, Frank Cottrell Boyce is "arguably the most original and versatile screenwriter in [England]." Boyce has participated in Ebert's Internet forum and on "The Claim" website as he doesn't regard himself as a professional filmmaker, but more like a very enthusiastic fan. In his spare time, Boyce helps run a small independent movie house, making the popcorn duty and acting as an usher, which includes having to throw people out.

Boyce and Winterbottom began their collaboration when he was working on a script about the dangers of smoking for the same London television company where Winterbottom was working as a trainee editor, a position in which it was hard to make progress due to the seniority system. He was as frustrated as Winterbottom, and to escape their apprenticeship hell, Boyce wrote a spec script for Winterbottom to film. While the movie was never made, it was good enough to get producers interested in the duo.

From a script written by Boyce, Winterbottom made his first theatrical film, "Forget About Me," which was released in 1990. Five years later, they teamed up again for "Butterfly Kiss" (1995), a road movie featuring Amanda Plummer as a homicidal lesbian. Boyce loves the film, which he says was written and shot very quickly.

"Welcome to Sarajevo" (1997), the duo's next effort, was a docudrama about reporters covering the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Boyce's sister's ex-boyfriend was a journalist killed in Sarajevo, and the duo wanted to make a film about the human tragedy of the civil war there. Shot on location in Sarajevo despite great difficulties, Boyce says that the film "was made with great spirit." Both the script and the finished film were unpolished, as they had wanted to shoot the film quickly.

Boyce is a Thomas Hardy fan, and Boyce wrote a script based on Hardy's "The Mayor of Casterbridge" called "Kingdom Come" that was later re-titled "The Claim" (2000) for release. Like Hardy's novel, a man who sells his wife and daughter sets the events of "The Claim" in motion, although a change forced upon the filmmakers resulted in the narrative becoming fuzzy. Boyce was disappointed by the finished film for he believes the potential of the script, which he and Winterbottom worked on for two years, was not fully realized as Boyce had lost control over the script during the development process.

Financed by Pathe for Canadian $20 million, the biggest budget Winterbottom had ever worked with, the money people at Pathe were insistent that showing the man sell his wife and daughter at the beginning of the film would make him an unsympathetic character. Like the Hardy novel, Boyce's script had started out with the Faust-bargain that determined the trio's fate. In the script, the deal comes after a grueling trek through the cruel environment of the Sierra Mountains in which hope is faint and there is no turning back. So as not to lose sympathy for the hero, Pathe demanded that the event happen later in the movie, in flashback.

The scene does come later in the film, and the scene is not as elaborate as Boyce had written, thus dampening the desperation of the young Dillon, the movie's protagonist. There is less of a sense in the film than in the screenplay that there is no turning back from his trek to Kingdom Come, the name on the shack of the lonely miner who will trade his claim for Dillon's wife and baby. Shot at an altitude of 7,000 feet on Alberta's Fortress Mountain in appalling conditions, Winterbottom's ability to shoot the entire script was restricted.

By moving the protagonists' "terrible crime," as Boyce calls it, to the movie's halfway point, the film was rendered unfocused and the theme of the terrible machinations of fate was ungrounded. The result was that the drama suffered. This "crime" against Boyce's script by the producers rendered the film "pointless," Boyce believes, still stung about giving in to the producers and not fighting for his own vision. "The Claim" opened to some fine reviews but was essentially dumped by its North American distributor, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Featuring excellent, Oscar-caliber performances by Peter Mullan and Sarah Polley as father and daughter, and opening with 45 minutes of superb, hypnotic sequences that serve as a visual correlative of the characters' atomization and loneliness in this awesome physical landscape, the film deserved a better fate.

Critic David Thomson was very impressed by "The Claim," both by the drama and the visuals. Winterbottom's director of photographer, xxx xxx, had innovatively photographed the snow using black and white stock that was seamlessly matched to the color footage. The landscapes were as cold and forbidding as any ever caught on film, and foreshadowed the fate of the protagonist Dillon's soul.

"24 Hour Party People" (2002), a free-wheeling, high-spirited movie about the Manchester, England nightclub impresario Tony Wilson, was the Winterbottom-Boyce team's next project. Wilson was the man who helped transform the British music scene in the 1980s after being enthralled by a Sex Pistols concert. Boyce is not an anal retentive-type when it comes to his screen writing, and he freely admits that the script of "24 Hour Party People" was never actually finished. However, he does dispute critics' perceptions that Steve Coogan, who brilliantly limned Wilson in what many assumed was an improvised performance due its freshness, winged it. Wilson's verbal flights of fancy were in fact scripted.

Tony Wilson was a generous soul, eager to spread his good fortune around, which made him an attractive character to Boyce. Fueled by ecstasy, the Manchester music scene exploded like the beer-and-amphetamine rock n' roll scene in Boyce's native Liverpool a generation before. It all comes crashing down, but not before Winterbottom (a native of the Manchester area) and Boyce turned in one of their most entertaining films.

For other filmmakers, Boyce wrote the screenplay for Anand Tucker's "Hilary and Jackie" (1998), the story of cellist Jacqueline du Pre and her sister. The film attracted the attention of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, and Emily Watson and her co-star Rachel Griffiths both won Academy Award nominations as Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, for playing Jackie and Hillary, respectively. Boyce also wrote the screen adaptation of Thomas Middleton's 17th century play "The Revenger's Tragedy" for cult director Alex Cox.

With "Trainspotting" director Danny Boyle, most famous for that film about Edinburgh's heroin addicts, Boyce gave the cinematic world the family film "Millions," in which two small boys find and spend the swag from a train robbery. Boyce was given the honorific "Written by" in the credits, the equivalent of a director's "A film by" but even rarer, showing the respect that he has earned in the industry..

Boyce wrote the script immediately after "Welcome to Sarajevo," but English producers, used to financing quirky, niche films for the art house crowd or mid-Atlantic comedies featuring the likes of Hugh Grant, were wary of a family film as that would mean competing with Hollywood on its own turf. The script didn't' attract the interest of producers until Boyle attached himself to it. Boyle's low-budget zombie chiller "28 Days Later" (2003) had grossed over $45 million at the box office, making him a hot property and "Millions" a go. The movie represents a radical departure in both subject matter and tone for both Boyce and Boyle, a fact pointed out by critics. However, Frank Cottrell Boyle, in an interview with Roger Ebert, told him "it's the destination I've been trying to get to for a long time. " Boyce has turned his screenplay into a novel, which has been published by Macmillan in the UK and by HarperCollins in the US.

The film features its young protagonist conversing matter-of-factly with several saints, whom he is an expert on. Boyle had read an Ebert interview with Martin Scorsese in which the great American director recounted that he'd been influenced by a book detailing the lives of saints, "The Six O'clock Saints." Boyce then reread the dictionary of saints he'd had since childhood and found that there was a plethora of stories there, "narrative cash" he calls it.

In the Ebert interview, Boyce said, "People think of saints as vaguely nice and virtuous but in fact they were often difficult, mad, driven by a different energy..... The thing about the saints is that for nearly 2,000 years they were the popular culture. Those gory, erotic statues you see in old churches are like early cinema...."

Working in a national film industry always teetering on the brink of financial disaster, Boyce is able to ply his craft outside of London, living in Liverpool with his wife and seven children. Boyce thinks he's been lucky in that he's never actually written a hit movie, though the curse of "hit" screen writers is that if they write something that is not subsequently a hit, they have failed. Though Boyce has had his disappointments, he has never failed. "I've never done anything that I had to live up to!"

The films written by the former TV critic for "Living Marxism frequently feature the trope of money and the power it exerts over people. Money, realized in the trading of his wife and child for a gold mine claim, destroys Dillon in "The Claim." The reckless generosity of Tony Wilson sets up his eventual fall in "24-Hour Party People," while in "Millions," children hands out wads of cash before the introduction of the euro would make their loot worthless. Boyce thinks the importance of money in his films is not rooted in Marxism but "from working in the film industry where money is like an actual physical force acting on you all the time - like gravity or something." He describes his life philosophy as "Reckless Generosity," a fusion of Tony Wilson and St. Francis of Assisi.

Frank Cottrell Boyce told Ebert, "I'm not sure that I'm that successful! I think I've probably let others do all the moving and shaking for me. Living far away from London may have something to do with it. People hesitate about calling you down to meetings so you never get sacked. Maybe people don't want to sack someone who's got so many mouths to feed!"

His advice on scriptwriting and actually getting films made is to work with people you like and get on with, rather than selecting people for technical expertise. That way, "[Y]our script usually ends up less mangled."

Michael Winterbottom's forthcoming "A Cock and Bull Story" (2005) is based on Boyce's adaptation of Laurence Sterne's 18th century novel "The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman." The classic novel is the autobiography of a man who never gets around to being born, focusing instead on the events that will propel this new life into the world. In fact, "Tristam Shandy" was the first project that Boyce had ever pitched to Winterbottom.

"The book is about the birth of a baby, and about how all your hopes for the baby are dashed but somehow it doesn't matter."

Boyce says that the movie, which is a movie about the making of a movie, is "quite a warm film about the fun of the film set." Starring Steve Coogan, Boyce claims that it actually is more evocative of Francois Truffaut's "La nuit americaine" (1973) than it is one of Charlie Kaufman's screen writing exercises.

Currently, Boyce is working on an adaptation of "The Odyssey" aimed at a young audience which focuses on Odysseus' son Telemachus. On the advice of his young sons, he is including the interactions of his characters with the gods, something the movie "Troy" neglected.

In terms of the screen writing craft, Frank Cottrell Boyce feels that the much-heralded "Three-Act Structure" for motion picture screenplays is bollocks. He points out that the structures of "The Godfather" and "Apocalypse Now" are accumulations of anecdotes through which the audience pieces together the storyline by themselves. As for the admonition that writers should only write what they know about, Boyce counters with the example of Shakespeare. One needs not be a king to write "The Tragedy of Richard III."

Essentially, Boyce and his collaborators are in the long-line of screen writers and directors descended form Maurice Tourneur. Tourneur was one of the first in Hollywood to argue against convention in favor of a more artistic, expressionistic cinema free of the formulas of the penny dreadful pulp fiction and other vulgar entertainments of the masses. Like Tourneur, they believe that the audience is smart enough to understand a picture that does not rely on hackneyed formulas. While Boyce had trouble breaking out of the "art film ghetto" with his relatively large-budgeted "The Claim," his dedication to his craft and his principles promise that art house patrons, if not the masses, will be enjoying stimulating entertainments for years to come.

Ol Parker was born on 2 June 1969 in London, England, UK. He is a writer and director, known for Now Is Good (2012), Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018) and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011). He has been married to Thandiwe Newton since 11 July 1998. They have three children.

Peter Hoar is known for The Last of Us (2023), It's a Sin (2021) and The Umbrella Academy (2019).

When young he lived with his four brothers and sisters in a council house in Newcastle Upon Tyne then when 14 the family moved to Thornyburn near Bellingham where he made his first film, 'Redheugh'. He qualified in Newcastle as a music teacher and played in a band, 'The Gasboard' with Brian Ferry before going to London to study music for 3 years and played with The People Band who recorded one album which was produced by Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts and later made a cameo appearance in the film Stormy Monday as The krakow Jazz Ensemble. In the early 70 s he joined an avant garde theatre group -The People Show as a musician but soon found himself lured into acting and spent the next 10 years touring the world earning great success and critical acclaim. Mike left the show in 1980 to concentrate on writing and directing and formed his own theatre company The Mike Figgis Group. He crafted multimedia productions which incorporated an extensive use of film. Among his early projects were Redhugh, Slow Fade and Animals of the City which won awards for the innovative blend of live action with music and film. Redhugh caught the eye of Channel 4 which financed his first feature =The House. His next film was Stormy Monday he wrote, directed and scored and which advanced him into full length features. He next made his debut in American films with Internal Affairs which he directed and co scored, He next coaxed Kim Novak out of retirement to star in Liebestraum which he directed and scored. A few films down the line he wrote, directed and scored One Night Stand which won Best Actor Award at the Venice Film Festival

Peter Chelsom is a member of the British Academy, the American Academy, The Directors Guild Of America, and The Writers Guild Of America. Peter was born in Blackpool in the North of England. He is a US and UK citizen. (Trivia: he is an Honorary Citizen of a small town in Tuscany, Italy, called Fivizzano). He trained at London's Central School of Drama and worked as an actor playing leading roles in TV, films, and in the theatre for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and the Royal Court Theatre. At 30, Peter became a film director/writer. His first film, Treacle, won a BAFTA nomination and invitations to festivals all over the world. His first full-length feature was the successful romantic comedy, Hear My Song (BAFTA nomination). The film is a wild and highly entertaining tale inspired by the life of the charismatic Irish tenor, Josef Locke, played in the film by Ned Beatty. Hear My Song was praised universally by critics and was a hugely optimistic crowd-pleaser. Princess Diana attended its Royal Premiere, and the Evening Standard British Film Awards awarded the film Best Newcomer. Peter's second feature was Funny Bones, a film about comedy. Made for Hollywood Pictures and starring Oliver Platt, Jerry Lewis, Leslie Caron, and newcomer Lee Evans, it once again won rave reviews in the States and the rest of the world. It won Best Picture at five European Film Festivals and the Peter Sellers Award for Comedy at the Evening Standard British Film Awards. Bigger, richer and darker than the first, it tells the story of two half brothers - one American and the other British - who will stop at nothing to get a laugh... even murder. His Hollywood films include The Mighty (two Golden Globe Nominations), the perennial Serendipity (John Cusack, Kate Beckinsale), Shall We Dance (Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez), which grossed $170m worldwide, The Space Between Us (Gary Oldman), Hector And The Search For Happiness (Simon Pegg, Rosamund Pike, Christopher Plummer, Toni Collette, Stellan Skarsgard, and Jean Reno), The Space Between Us (Gary Oldman, Asa Butterfield). Recently, he has made two films in Italy. The Italian language film - Security, which reached number 3 on Netflix Movies Worldwide (Marco D'Amore, Ludovica Martino, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Silvio Muccino) and A Sudden Case of Christmas (Danny DeVito). Peter is also known as a photographer, recently invited to exhibit his work at the Milan and Turin Photo Fairs.

John Carney was born in 1972 in Dublin, Ireland. He is a writer and director, known for Sing Street (2016), Once (2006) and Flora and Son (2023).

Justin Chadwick was born on 1 December 1968 in Manchester, Lancashire, England, UK. He is a director and actor, known for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013), The First Grader (2010) and Bleak House (2005).

Tom Hooper was educated at one of England's most prestigious schools, Westminster. His first film, Runaway Dog, was made when he was 13 years old and shot on a Clockwork 16mm Bolex camera, using 100 feet of film. At age 18, he wrote, directed and produced the short film Painted Faces (1992), which premiered at the London Film Festival; it was released theatrically and later shown on Channel 4. He studied English at England's top university, Oxford. At Oxford University, he directed theatre productions starring his contemporaries Kate Beckinsale and Emily Mortimer, and directed his first television commercials. His father was a non-executive director at United News and Media, which owned an ITV franchise.

Hooper's father introduced him to one of British television's top directors and producers, Matthew Robinson, who gave him breaks by employing him to direct episodes of Byker Grove (1989) and EastEnders (1985), both series produced by Robinson. Further success came when he was approved by Helen Mirren to direct her in Prime Suspect: The Last Witness (2003). He then worked with her again on Elizabeth I (2005). Hooper made the difficult transition from television to film with apparent ease, directing Michael Sheen in the Brian Clough biopic The Damned United (2009) and Colin Firth in The King's Speech (2010). Both films were critical and commercial successes, quickly establishing Hooper as one of the most in demand directors of his generation.

Hooper has garnered numerous awards in his career. He won an Academy Award for directing The King's Speech. The 2010 film was nominated for 12 Oscars, more than any other film of that year, and also won the Best Picture, Best Actor (Colin Firth), and Best Original Screenplay Oscars. The King's Speech received seven BAFTA Awards, including Best Film and Outstanding British Film. Hooper also won a Directors Guild of America Award for his direction. Among other accolades worldwide, The King's Speech additionally was honored with the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival; the Best British Film prize at the British Independent Film Awards; the Spirit Award for Best Foreign Film; the Producers Guild of America Awards' top prize; and the European Film Award for Best Film. The King's Speech earned $414 million at the worldwide box office.

Hooper was recently again a Directors Guild of America Award nominee for directing Working Title Films' Les Misérables. The 2012 film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won the Best Supporting Actress (Anne Hathaway), Best Sound, and Best Make-up and Hair Styling Academy Awards. Les Misérables received those same accolades at the BAFTA Awards, as well as the BAFTA for Best Production Design. Among other accolades worldwide, Les Misérables was named one of the year's 10 Best Films by the American Film Institute with an AFI Award; won three Golden Globe Awards including Best Picture [Musical/Comedy]; was voted the Best Acting by an Ensemble award by the National Board of Review; and was nominated for four Screen Actors Guild Awards. Les Misérables earned $442 million at the worldwide box office.

The Damned United received a South Bank Show Award nomination for Best British Film; and he gained acclaim for the BAFTA Award-nominated Red Dust, starring Hilary Swank and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Hooper had an unprecedented run of success at the Golden Globe Awards with his works for HBO, which won the Golden Globe for Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television three years in a row. The actors and actresses starring in these productions - respectively, Elizabeth I, Longford, and John Adams - also won Golden Globes for their performances three years running.

Hooper won an Emmy Award for directing Elizabeth I. The HBO Films/Channel 4 miniseries won three Golden Globes and nine Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Miniseries.

Longford, written by Peter Morgan, starred Jim Broadbent and Samantha Morton. The HBO Films/Channel 4 Telefilm won three Golden Globe Awards and was nominated for five Emmy Awards.

John Adams (2008), starring Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney, won four Golden Globes and 13 Emmy Awards - the most Emmys ever awarded to a program in one year. Hooper, receiving his first Directors Guild of America Award nomination, directed all nine hours of the HBO Films miniseries.

Hooper was nominated for an Emmy Award for helming ITV's miniseries Prime Suspect 6. His television work also includes Daniel Deronda (2002), which won the award for Best Miniseries at the 2003 Banff Television Festival; the miniseries Love in a Cold Climate (2001), for which star Alan Bates received a BAFTA Award nomination; episodes of the multi-award-winning ITV comedy/drama Cold Feet (1997); and EastEnders (1985) one-hour specials that garnered BAFTA Awards two years in a row.

Philippa Lowthorpe is a three times Bafta winning TV and Film Director.

She became the first woman to win a Bafta for Best Director at the Bafta Television Awards in 2013. She was awarded her second directing BAFTA in 2018 for Three Girls, the highly acclaimed and multi award-winning TV Series which won 5 Baftas in total.

She was lead director of the first series of "Call The Midwife", which became an immediate hit, gaining the highest viewing figures of any BBC show for the previous 10 years.

Philippa was born in Yorkshire and grew up in Lincolnshire. She began as a documentary maker before moving into drama.

She is known for The Third Day (2020), Misbehaviour (2020), The Crown (2017), Three Girls ( 2017)

Matthew Warchus was born on 24 October 1966 in Rochester, Kent, England, UK. He is a director and writer, known for Pride (2014), Matilda: The Musical (2022) and Simpatico (1999).