Short answers, pulled from the story.
Michael Hirst is best known for the films Elizabeth (1998) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), and for the television series The Tudors (2007-10) and Vikings (2013-20). He wrote all 38 episodes of The Tudors and all 89 episodes of Vikings.
Michael Hirst was originally planning an academic career when director Nicolas Roeg read one of his short stories and asked him to write screenplays. That invitation redirected Hirst from academia to professional screenwriting.
Michael Hirst attended Bradford Grammar School, the London School of Economics, and earned a First Class Joint-Honours Degree in English and American Literature from the University of Nottingham. He also studied Henry James' writings at Trinity College, Oxford.
Michael Hirst owns Green Pavilion Entertainment, a production company he launched in December 2017.
Michael Hirst's daughters Maude Hirst and Georgia Hirst are both actors. Maude appeared in The Tudors, and both Maude and Georgia appeared in Vikings.
Vikings: Valhalla is a sequel series to Vikings, set approximately 100 years after the events of the original. Hirst began developing it in 2019 with writer Jeb Stuart, and it was released on Netflix in 2022.