![]() |
Kirk Jones | |
---|---|
Jones in May 2012 | |
Born | |
Nationality | British |
Occupation(s) | Film director, screenwriter |
Years active | 1985-2016 |
Kirk Jones is an English film director and screenwriter.
Kirk Jones was born in Bristol, England and grew up in Long Ashton, Somerset. He attended Backwell School and Filton Technical College before being offered a place at Newport Film School (University of South Wales) where he specialized in directing drama, comedy and television commercials between 1985-87. He graduated after winning a National Student Film Award and started to work for London-based production company, BFCS as a production runner and later as assistant film editor.
Whilst working in the cutting room, he continued to write and direct his own films and after collecting a Silver award at the Creative Circle Awards for his Mercedes commercial which he wrote and directed in 1990, he was invited to join Xenium Productions as a director. His Absolut Vodka film, which he wrote and directed was awarded a Silver in 1991 and Jones began directing commercials full-time in London, Europe and the US, working for agencies including Saatchi & Saatchi, Bartle, Bogle and Hegarty and Mother. Jones's producer, Glynis Murray set up Tomboy Films in 1991 and he joined her soon after. Awards at NABS in ‘94 and a Silver at the Creative Circle Awards followed and Jones continued to direct more than one hundred commercials for clients including The National Lottery, Reebok, National Westminster Bank, HSBC, Coca Cola etc. His campaign for Heinz won a Silver Lion at Cannes in ’96 (Best Campaign) and his Reebok campaign won awards at both The Creative Circle and the British TV Advertising Awards in ‘98.
In 1995, Jones started to write what would become his first feature film, [1] Waking Ned , which he directed in 1998. He was nominated for a BAFTA at the Film awards as "Best Newcomer" for his first feature film. Proportionate to budget, Waking Ned was the second-highest-grossing film in the world in 1999, behind The Blair Witch Project , and won awards in the U.S and Europe including: New York Comedy Film Festival (Best Feature, Grand Jury and Critics Prize. Best Feature at Comedy d'Alp in France and Audience Award for Best Feature at Paris Film Festival.
In 2005, Jones directed his second feature film, Nanny McPhee , for Working Title and Universal Pictures. Starring Emma Thompson and Colin Firth, it was one of the year's ten highest-grossing films in the UK, with $29 million, and grossed $123 million worldwide. In 2008, Jones wrote and directed his third film, Everybody's Fine. Starring Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell, released through Miramax in 2009 and Disney worldwide in 2010. In 2012, Jones directed Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Chris Rock, and Anna Kendrick in the romantic comedy What to Expect When You're Expecting through Lionsgate. [2] In 2016, Jones directed a sequel to the 2002 film My Big Fat Greek Wedding entitled My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 which was produced by Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, Gary Goetzman, Paul Brooks, and Nia Vardalos. [3]
Year | Title | Director | Writer |
---|---|---|---|
1998 | Waking Ned | Yes | Yes |
2005 | Nanny McPhee | Yes | No |
2009 | Everybody's Fine | Yes | Yes |
2012 | What to Expect When You're Expecting | Yes | No |
2016 | My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 | Yes | No |
Albert Finney was an English actor. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked in the theatre before attaining fame for movie acting during the early 1960s, debuting with The Entertainer (1960), directed by Tony Richardson, who had previously directed him in theatre. He maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television.
Dame Emma Thompson is a British actress and screenwriter. Her work spans over four decades of screen and stage, and her accolades include two Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award. In 2018, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to drama.
Sir Thomas Daniel Courtenay is an English actor. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he achieved prominence in the 1960s as part of actors of the British New Wave. Courtenay has received numerous accolades including three BAFTA Awards, a Golden Globe Award, the Silver Bear, and the Volpi Cup for Best Actor as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, two Tony Awards, and a Emmy Award. He was knighted for his services to cinema and theatre in the 2001 New Year Honours.
Richard Stuart Linklater is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is known for making films that deal thematically with suburban culture and the effects of the passage of time. His films include the comedies Slacker (1990) and Dazed and Confused (1993); the Before trilogy of romance films: Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013); the music-themed comedy School of Rock (2003); the adult animated films Waking Life (2001), A Scanner Darkly (2006), and Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood (2022); the coming-of-age drama Boyhood (2014); the comedy film Everybody Wants Some!! (2016); and the romantic comedy Hit Man (2023).
Michael Cormac Newell is an English film and television director and producer. He won the BAFTA for Best Direction for Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), which also won the BAFTA Award for Best Film, and directed the films Donnie Brasco (1997) and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005).
Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones is a British film director, film producer and screenwriter. He directed the films Moon (2009), Source Code (2011), Warcraft (2016), and Mute (2018). For Moon, he won the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer. He is the son of English singer-songwriter David Bowie and Cypriot-born American model, actress, and journalist Angie Bowie.
Lawrence Sher, ASC is an American cinematographer and film director, best known for comedy films such as Garden State, The Dictator, and The Hangover series, frequently collaborating with directors Todd Phillips and Zach Braff. He made his directorial debut with Father Figures, which began a wide theatrical release on December 22, 2017, by Warner Bros. Pictures. He was nominated for an Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography for the 2019 film Joker, directed by Phillips.
Nanny McPhee is a 2005 comedy drama fantasy film based on the Nurse Matilda character by Christianna Brand. It was directed by Kirk Jones, coproduced by StudioCanal, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, Working Title Films, Three Strange Angels, and Nanny McPhee Productions with music by Patrick Doyle, and produced by Lindsay Doran, Tim Bevan, and Eric Fellner. Set in Victorian England in the 1860s, the film stars Emma Thompson as Nanny McPhee, along with Colin Firth, Kelly Macdonald, Derek Jacobi, Celia Imrie, Patrick Barlow, Imelda Staunton, Thomas Sangster and Angela Lansbury.
Waking Ned is a 1998 comedy film written and directed by Kirk Jones and starring Ian Bannen, David Kelly, and Fionnula Flanagan. Kelly was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for his role as Michael O'Sullivan. The story is set in Ireland but was filmed on the nearby Isle of Man.
Donald Paul Hahn is an American film producer. He served as a producer for the Disney films Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Eric Nigel Fellner, is a British film producer. He is the co-chairman of the production company Working Title Films.
David Kerr is a British cinematographer based in England.
Kodi Smit-McPhee is an Australian actor. He gained recognition as a child actor for his leading roles in The Road (2009) and Let Me In (2010). He provided the voice of the titular character in ParaNorman (2012) and appeared in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Alpha (2018), and Dark Phoenix (2019).
Peter Chelsom is a British film director, writer, and actor. He has directed such films as Hector and the Search for Happiness, Serendipity, and Shall We Dance? Peter Chelsom is a member of the British Academy, the American Academy, The Directors Guild of America, and The Writers Guild of America.
Don Coutts is a Scottish filmmaker best known as the director of the 2003 feature film American Cousins and for bringing the world of Katie Morag to the screen. The successful translation of the characters from the books of Mairi Hedderwick has won nine awards - including a US Peabody, 3 BAFTAs, a Royal Television Society Scotland Children's Award, a Scottish BAFTA and a Kidscreen award.
Richard Holmes is a British film producer.
Nick Moore is a British film director and editor. He directed the 2011 British Movie Horrid Henry: The Movie. He directed the 2008 Wild Child, and other previous work included editing the 1997 The Full Monty for which he was nominated for a BAFTA award, the 1999 hit Notting Hill, the 2002 About a Boy for which he was nominated for the American Cinema Editors Award for Best Edited Feature Film – Comedy or Musical, and the 2003 Love Actually.
Elliot Hegarty is a film and television director working in Britain and the United States.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 is a 2016 American romantic comedy film directed by Kirk Jones and written by Nia Vardalos. The film stars Vardalos, John Corbett, Lainie Kazan, Michael Constantine, Andrea Martin, Ian Gomez, and Elena Kampouris.
Henry Braham is a British cinematographer, best known for his work on Nanny McPhee, The Legend of Tarzan, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,The Suicide Squad, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Flash and Superman