Roger Michell’s biography, fact, career, awards, net worth and life story

Roger Michell (born 5 June 1956) is a South African theatre, television and film director.

Personal life

Michell was born in Pretoria, South Africa but spent significant parts of his childhood in Beirut, Damascus and Prague as his father was a diplomat. He was educated at Clifton College where he became a member of Brown’s house in 1968. He studied at Queens’ College, Cambridge and in 1977, he won the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company Buzz Goodbody Award (named after the acclaimed British female director Buzz Goodbody, who committed suicide at the age of 29). Michell graduated from Cambridge in 1977.

Michell was married to the actress Kate Buffery, but they are now divorced. They have two children, daughter, actress Rosie and son Harry. His wife is now Anna Maxwell Martin, with whom he has two daughters named Nancy and Maggie.

Career

After graduating from Cambridge in 1977, Michell moved to London and began an apprenticeship at the Royal Court Theatre and worked as assistant director to noted British playwright John Osborne and Irish playwright Samuel Beckett. During this period, he also worked with stage manager Danny Boyle, who would also go on to a successful directing career.

In 1979 he left the Royal Court Theatre and began writing and directing projects on his own. The most successful of these ventures was 1982’s Private Dick a comedy which won the Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival. The play later debuted in London’s West End and featured Robert Powell as Philip Marlowe.

In 1985, Michell joined the Royal Shakespeare Company where, over six years, he was an assistant director and then a resident director. At the RSC, Michell directed Some Americans Abroad, which transferred to Broadway in 1990.

In 1993, he directed the acclaimed BBC miniseries adaptation of Hanif Kureishi’s autobiographical novel The Buddha of Suburbia, starring Naveen Andrews. He followed that with the BBC film Persuasion in 1995. After it won the 1995 BAFTA for Best Single Drama., the film was released in theatres in America to great success. Michell then directed My Night with Reg (1997) and Titanic Town (1998).

Michell was next chosen by Richard Curtis to direct his script Notting Hill, which ended up becoming one of the highest grossing British movies of all time on its release in 1999. At the end of that film, Julia Roberts’s character is seen reading the novel Captain Corelli’s Mandolin as she and Hugh Grant relax in a park. This is a little in-joke, as it was to be Michell’s next film for the same company, Working Title Films. However he had a health scare, which required him to pull out and be replaced by John Madden.

He then directed the 2002 box office hit Changing Lanes starring Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson. In 2003, he directed The Mother, written by Hanif Kureishi and starring Daniel Craig. Craig also starred in Michell’s next film, Enduring Love (2004), an adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel. Michell then directed Peter O’Toole to an Oscar nomination in 2006’s Venus, again written by Kureishi.

Michell was in negotiations to work with Craig yet again in 2006 and direct the James Bond film Quantum of Solace, but these talks fell through due to “creative differences”.

His next film was 2010’s Morning Glory, a comedy starring Rachel McAdams and Harrison Ford set in the world of morning news, produced by J.J. Abrams.

He continues to work in theatre, with some of his more recent productions including Patrick Hamilton’s Rope at the Almeida in 2009, Nina Raine’s Tribes at the Royal Court in 2010, and Richard Nelson’s Farewell to the Theatre at Hampstead Theatre in 2012.

Michell directed Hyde Park on Hudson starring Bill Murray as United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In 2013, Roger was announced as a new judge on the panel for the 2014 Norwich Film Festival.

Filmography

• Persuasion (1995) (For TV)
• My Night with Reg (1996)
• Titanic Town (1998)
• Notting Hill (1999)
• Changing Lanes (2002)
• The Mother (2003)
• Enduring Love (2004)
• Venus (2006)
• Morning Glory (2010)
• Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)
• Le Week-End (2013)
• My Cousin Rachel (2017)