Roger Michell Biography

Born in Pretoria, South Africa, director Roger Michell moved to England to attend Cambridge University. After completing his studies in 1977 where he was awarded the Royal Shakespeare Company Goodbody Award for best student director, Roger spent two years at the Royal Court Theatre. He started to direct plays in London, Southampton, Sheffield and Florence and his play, Private Dick, in which he also co-wrote received acclaim at the Edinburgh Festival.

In 1985, Michell was hired by the Royal Shakespeare Company where he remained as Resident Director for six years. During his stay he worked on such productions as Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, Temptation and Some Americans Abroad.

By the 1990s he decided to take on a new genre of entertainment and took a BBC Drama Directors Course. Following the quick education, he was signed up to direct the three-part drama Downtown Lagos, followed by the four-part mini-series The Buddha of Suburbia (which he also co-wrote).

In 1995 he released his debut feature film, Jane Austen's Persuasion. The film earned five BAFTA awards including one for Michell for Best Drama. He followed up that success with the multi-award winning film version of his theatre production, My Night With Reg (1997).

By the end of the millennium, he had completed the Hollywood hit film, Notting Hill (1999) starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. The film not only fared well at the box office but earned a BAFTA Audience Award. Subsequent films have not been as commercially oriented, including the off-beat Enduring Love (2004), starring a pre-Bond Daniel Craig as a man tormented to the point of ruining every aspect of his life after he fails to save a man's life. Peter O'Toole starred in his next film, Venus (2006), and Michell followed that up with the comedy Morning Glory (2010) starring Rachel McAdams and Harrison Ford, and Hyde Park on Hudson (2012) with Bill Murray and Laura Linney.

The romance drama Le Week-End (2013) with Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan followed, as well as the mystery drama My Cousin Rachel (2017) with Rachel Weisz and Sam Claflin. Michell wrote the screenplay for the latter work, which is based on a Daphne Du Maurier novel.

His final movie, the documentary Elizabeth: A Portrait in Parts (2022), was finished before he died unexpectedly on September 22, 2021. Although no cause of death was given, Michell had suffered from heart disease for many years and had experienced a heart attack in 1999.

Michell divorced his first wife, actress Kate Buffery, with whom he had a son and a daughter, in 2002. In 2010, he married Anna Maxwell Martin, with whom he had two daughters. They separated in 2020.

Filmography:

Elizabeth: A Portrait in Parts (2022)
The Duke (2020)
Blackbird (2021)
Tea With the Dames (2018)
My Cousin Rachel (2017)
Le Week-End (2013)
Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)
Morning Glory (2010)
Venus (2006)
Enduring Love (2004)
The Mother (2003)
Changing Lanes (2002)
Notting Hill (1999)
Titanic Town (1998)
My Night with Reg (1997)
Persuasion (1995)