Curated playlist
English male screenwriters
- Alfred HitchcockAt age five, Alfred Hitchcock was sent to a police station with a note and locked in a cell.
- Simon KinbergSimon Kinberg plays a banker in his own script for Mr. & Mrs. Smith. He began that screenplay as a film school thesis.
- Charlie ChaplinCharlie Chaplin was in a workhouse twice before he turned nine. By 26 he was among the world's highest-paid people.
- Christopher NolanChristopher Nolan has no smartphone and no email address. He hand-delivers his scripts to the actors he wants.
- Raymond ChandlerRaymond Chandler sold his first story for $180 after losing his oil job at forty-four.
- Neil GaimanNeil Gaiman is the first author to win both the Carnegie Medal and the Newbery Medal for the same book.
- Sacha Baron CohenSacha Baron Cohen spilled flour on Ryan Seacrest at the Oscars. He claimed it was Kim Jong-il's ashes.
- Noël CowardNoël Coward, the English playwright, composer, actor and singer, once answered a magazine writer's apology with a perfect line. Around his seventieth birthday, a Time interviewer said he hoped Coward had not been bored by so many…
- Tom StoppardTom Stoppard arrived in England knowing not a word of Czech. He fled Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia as a child.
- Rowan AtkinsonRowan Atkinson played one synthesizer note, over and over, at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. The moment came during a performance of "Chariots of Fire". Atkinson appeared as Mr. Bean, and the single note soon…
- Michael Hirst (writer)Michael Hirst wrote all 89 episodes of the History Channel drama Vikings. It was the channel's first serialized drama.
- Gary OldmanGary Oldman needed 200 hours in a makeup chair to become Winston Churchill. The transformation also took 14 pounds of silicone rubber. Then came US$20,000 worth of Cuban cigars, which left the actor with nicotine poisoning. Oldman, an…
- Hugh LaurieHugh Laurie recorded the audition tape for his most famous role in the bathroom of a hotel in Namibia. It was the only room where the light was good enough. He was in Africa to film The Flight of the Phoenix, and a man named Jacob Vargas…
- Gary WhittaGary Whitta once stayed on camera for 24 hours straight. In October 2011 he co-hosted a live-streamed edition of the show This is Only a Test with Tested creators Will Smith and Norman Chan. The marathon raised over $50,000 for Child's…