| Edgar Wright | |
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Wright at the San Diego Comic-Con International in July 2010. |
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| Born | Edgar Howard Wright 18 April 1974 Poole, Dorset, England |
| Occupation | Director/writer |
| Years active | 1994–present |
Edgar Howard Wright (born 18 April 1974) is an English film and television director and writer. He is most famous for his work with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost on the films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, the TV series Spaced, and for directing the film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and co-writing the Steven Spielberg film The Adventures of Tintin with Joe Cornish and Doctor Who and Sherlock writer, Steven Moffat.
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Wright was born in Poole, Dorset, but grew up predominantly in Wells, Somerset, after his family moved there during his childhood. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, Wright directed many short films, first on a Super-8 camera which was a gift from a family member and later on a Video-8 camcorder won in a competition on the television programme Going Live. These films were mostly comedic pastiches of popular genres, such as the super hero-inspired Carbolic Soap and Dirty Harry tribute Dead Right (the latter of which was eventually featured on the DVD release of Hot Fuzz).
After graduating from Bournemouth Arts College he made a spoof western, A Fistful of Fingers, which was picked up for a limited theatrical release and broadcast on the British satellite TV channel Sky Movies.[1] Despite Wright's dissatisfaction with the finished product, it caught the attention of comedians Matt Lucas and David Walliams, who subsequently chose him as the director of their Paramount Comedy channel productions Mash & Peas and Sir Bernard's Stately Homes. During this time he also worked on BBC programmes such as Is It Bill Bailey? and Alexei Sayle's Merry-Go-Round. In an interview with journalist and author Robert K. Elder for The Film That Changed My Life, Wright cites his edgy and comedic style in his love for An American Werewolf in London:
I’ve always been fascinated by horror films and genre films. And horror films harboured a fascination for me and always have been something I’ve wanted to watch and wanted to make. Equally, I’m very fascinated by comedy. I suppose the reason that this film changed my life is that very early on in my film-watching experiences, I saw a film that was so sophisticated in its tone and what it managed to achieve.[2]
In 1998 writer/actors Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes were in the early stages of developing their sitcom Spaced for Channel 4 and thought of asking Wright to direct having fondly remembered working with him on the 1996 Paramount comedy Asylum. Wright gave Spaced an unusual look for the sitcom genre, with dramatic camera angles and movement borrowed from the visual language of science fiction and horror films. Instead of shying away from these influences Wright makes an active effort to show his referencing, adding a 'Homage-O-Meter' to all of his releases, a device that displays each directorial nod he has made during shooting. In 2002, he made appearances as a scientist and a technician named Eddie Yorque during both series of Look Around You, a BBC programme created by a member of the Spaced cast, Peter Serafinowicz. He also made a brief appearance in Spaced, in which he can be seen, along with other crew members on the series, lying asleep in Daisy Steiner's squat as she prepares to leave for her new house.
Wright cites Jon Spencer Blues Explosion as his favourite band. Several Blues Explosion songs feature in Wright's film Hot Fuzz, including one written specifically for the film. Wright has directed two videos for his ex-girlfriend Charlotte Hatherley: "Summer" and "Bastardo". He has also directed promos for 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster, Mint Royale and The Bluetones. Many of these videos have been made available to view on the "Archives" section of his official website.
The critical success of Spaced paved the way for Wright and Pegg to move to the big screen with Shaun of the Dead, a zombie comedy which mixed a "Brit flick" romantic comedy style with homages to the horror classics of George A. Romero and Sam Raimi. The film was a great success both critically and financially, and its rooting in American genre cinema helped to make it a transatlantic hit.
The pair subsequently planned out a trilogy of British genre-comedies which were connected not by narrative but by their shared traits and motifs. The trilogy was named "The Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy" by the pair (more popularly known as "The Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy") due to a running joke about the British Ice Cream product Cornetto and its effectiveness as a hangover cure.
The second installment was the comedy action thriller Hot Fuzz. Production started in March 2006 and the film was released in February 2007 in the UK and April 2007 in the US. It revolves around Pegg's character, Nicholas Angel, a police officer who is transferred from London to rural Sandford, where grisly events soon take place.
The third installment carries the tentative title of The World's End.
Wright has a brother, Oscar, who is a comic book artist, contributing storyboards, conceptual art and promotional pictures for Edgar's films. For example he designed comic book interpretations of the characters of Shaun of the Dead and created the animation for the flickbook PC Danny Butterman uses in Hot Fuzz, as well as the art for the "Plot Holes" features on both the Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead DVD releases. Oscar also was on set for the Hot Fuzz poster shoot to help Edgar out with the design. Oscar also directed the Charlotte Hatherley video for "Behave" and also designed the 8-bit Universal Pictures logo at the beginning of the movie, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World along with Edgar.
In 2007, Wright directed a fake trailer insert for Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse, called "Don't". It was a plotless trailer that mocked horror clichés, with lines such as, "If you... are thinking... of going ... into... this... house... DON'T!". He was offered the chance to direct Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol before Brad Bird was chosen.[3] In 2010, Wright directed Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, starring Michael Cera. For 2011, Wright co-wrote the film The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn for director Steven Spielberg and producer Peter Jackson, based on The Adventures of Tintin comics. The film also co-starred Wright's frequent collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. He has also been developing a live-action film based on the Marvel Comics superhero Ant-Man. Wright also has numerous projects in development, including Them, Baby Driver, and The World's End, the final entry in the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy.
| Year | Film | Credited as | Role | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director | Writer | Producer | Actor | |||
| 1993 | Dead Right | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Himself, "Ten seconds later" voice |
| 1995 | A Fistful of Fingers | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Cheesy voiceover artist, Two bit farmer cameo |
| 2004 | Shaun of the Dead | Yes | Yes | Yes | Rabid Monkeys Newsreader/Prat-falling Zombie/Italian Restaurant Voice/Noel's Friend on phone | |
| 2005 | Land of the Dead | Yes | Photo booth zombie | |||
| The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | Yes | Deep Thought Technician | ||||
| 2007 | Hot Fuzz | Yes | Yes | Yes | Shelf stacker, Voice of Dave | |
| Don't | Yes | Yes | ||||
| Son of Rambow | Yes | Metal work teacher | ||||
| 2010 | Scott Pilgrim vs. the World | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| 2011 | Attack the Block | Yes | ||||
| The Adventures of Tintin | Yes | |||||
| Them | Yes | Yes | ||||
Wright has cast certain actors in more than one of his films/TV shows. Scott Pilgrim vs the World is the only one unlisted because no actor from any of Wright's previous films make an appearance.
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