Alexander Medawar Garland
(born 26 May 1970)
is an English writer and filmmaker. He rose to prominence as a novelist in the late 1990s with his novel ''
The Beach'', which led some critics to call Garland a key voice of
Generation X
Generation X (or Gen X for short) is the Western demographic cohort following the baby boomers and preceding the millennials. Researchers and popular media use the mid-to-late 1960s as starting birth years and the late 1970s to early 1980s a ...
. He subsequently received praise for the screenplays of the films ''
28 Days Later
''28 Days Later'' is a 2002 British post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. It stars Cillian Murphy as a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to discover the accidental release of a highly contagiou ...
'' (2002), ''
Sunshine'' (2007), both directed by
Danny Boyle
Daniel Francis Boyle (born 20 October 1956) is an English director and producer. He is known for his work on films including '' Shallow Grave'', '' Trainspotting'' and its sequel '' T2 Trainspotting'', '' The Beach'', ''28 Days Later'', '' S ...
, ''
Never Let Me Go'' (2010), and ''
Dredd
''Dredd'' is a 2012 science fiction action film directed by Pete Travis and written and produced by Alex Garland. It is based on the '' 2000 AD'' comic strip '' Judge Dredd'' and its eponymous character created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezq ...
'' (2012). He co-wrote the video game ''
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West'' (2010) and was a story supervisor on ''
DmC: Devil May Cry'' (2013).
In 2014, Garland made his directorial debut with ''
Ex Machina'', a
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
-
thriller that explores the emergence of
artificial general intelligence
Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the ability of an intelligent agent to understand or learn any intellectual task that a human being can.
It is a primary goal of some artificial intelligence research and a common topic in science fictio ...
. The film earned him an
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
nomination for
Best Original Screenplay
The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created in 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story. Beginning with the ...
and won three
British Independent Film awards for Best Screenplay, Best Director, and Best British Independent Film. His second film, ''
Annihilation
In particle physics, annihilation is the process that occurs when a subatomic particle collides with its respective antiparticle to produce other particles, such as an electron colliding with a positron to produce two photons. The total energy ...
'' (2018), based on the
2014 novel by
Jeff VanderMeer, was also a critical success. In 2020, he wrote and directed the miniseries ''
Devs
''Devs'' is an American science fiction thriller television miniseries created, written, and directed by Alex Garland. It premiered on March 5, 2020, on FX on Hulu.
Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno) is a software engineer for Amaya, a quantum computing ...
'' for
FX on Hulu
FX Networks, LLC, is a company consisting of a network of cable channels plus a production company and a subsidiary of the Disney General Entertainment Content segment of The Walt Disney Company. Originally a part of 21st Century Fox, the comp ...
.
''Men'', his latest film, produced in collaboration with
A24
A24 is an American independent entertainment company that specializes in film and television production, as well as film distribution. It is based in New York City.
A24 was founded in 2012 by Daniel Katz, David Fenkel and John Hodges. Pr ...
, was released in May 2022 and received generally favorable reviews.
Early life
Garland was born in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, England,
the son of psychologist Caroline (''née'' Medawar) and
political cartoonist
An editorial cartoonist, also known as a political cartoonist, is an artist who draws editorial cartoons that contain some level of political or social commentary. Their cartoons are used to convey and question an aspect of daily news or curre ...
Nicholas Garland
Nicholas Withycombe Garland OBE (born 1 September 1935) is a British political cartoonist.
Early life
Garland was born in Hampstead, London. His father was a doctor and his mother a sculptor. He was the second of six children: he had three brot ...
. He has a younger brother and two older paternal half-siblings. His maternal grandparents are Nobel Prize–winning British biologist
Peter Medawar
Sir Peter Brian Medawar (; 28 February 1915 – 2 October 1987) was a Brazilian-British biologist and writer, whose works on graft rejection and the discovery of acquired immune tolerance have been fundamental to the medical practice of tissu ...
and writer
Jean Medawar
Jean Shinglewood Medawar, Lady Medawar (''née'' Taylor; 7 February 1913 – 3 May 2005) was a British author and a former chairman of the Family Planning Association, and wife of the British Nobel laureate Sir Peter Brian Medawar.
Medawar was ...
.
He was educated at
University College School
("Slowly but surely")
, established =
, closed =
, type = Public schoolIndependent day school
, religion =
, president =
, head_label = Headmaster
, head = Mark Beard
, r_head_label =
, r_he ...
and later attended and graduated from the
University of Manchester
, mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity
, established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univ ...
with a degree in History of Art.
Career
Novels
Garland's first novel, ''
The Beach'', was published in 1996. Based upon Garland's travels across Europe and Thailand, it tells the story of a young English backpacker who discovers an unspoiled seashore occupied by a community of like-minded backpackers. The novel is noted for its references to
drug culture, sequences of
hallucination
A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the qualities of a real perception. Hallucinations are vivid, substantial, and are perceived to be located in external objective space. Hallucination is a combinati ...
s, and unique depictions of excess and
utopia
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book '' Utopia'', describing a fictional island societ ...
. ''The Beach'' was initially met with positive reviews, and with a spreading
word of mouth
Word of mouth, or ''viva voce'', is the passing of information from person to person using oral communication, which could be as simple as telling someone the time of day. Storytelling is a common form of word-of-mouth communication where one pe ...
response, the novel grew in popularity. Garland would later speak of his discomfort with the fame ''The Beach'' brought him. "I never felt comfortable with it (the novel)."
''The Beach'' has been translated into 25 different languages
and sold close to 700,000 copies by the start of 1999. It was developed into
a film starring
Leonardo DiCaprio. In 2003, the novel was Ranked 103 in BBC's
The Big Read
The Big Read was a survey on books carried out by the BBC in the United Kingdom in 2003, where over three-quarters of a million votes were received from the British public to find the nation's best-loved novel of all time. The year-long survey wa ...
poll.
Garland's ''
The Tesseract'' (1998) is a non-linear narrative with several interwoven characters, set in
Manila
Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...
,
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
. The novel is characterized by a
post-modernist
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
narrative style and structure. It explores several themes such as love and violence through each character's circumstance and context of surroundings as well as seemingly inconsequential actions and the repercussions of those actions on other characters. ''The Tesseract'' did not enjoy the critical or commercial success of ''The Beach'', but it too has a
film adaptation.
Throughout his career and work, Garland has expressed his love of travel (particularly
backpacking
Backpacking may refer to:
* Backpacking (travel), low-cost, independent, international travel
* Backpacking (hiking), trekking and camping overnight in the wilderness
* Ultralight backpacking, a style of wilderness backpacking with an emphasis on ...
) and his love of
Manila
Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...
, much of which influenced his work.
Film
In 2002, Garland wrote the screenplay for Danny Boyle's ''
28 Days Later
''28 Days Later'' is a 2002 British post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. It stars Cillian Murphy as a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to discover the accidental release of a highly contagiou ...
'', starring
Cillian Murphy
Cillian Murphy (; born 25 May 1976) is an Irish actor. Originally the lead singer, guitarist, and lyricist of the rock band The Sons of Mr. Green Genes, he turned down a record deal in the late 1990s and began acting on stage and in short an ...
. He has said that the script was influenced by 1970s zombie films and British science fiction like ''
The Day of the Triffids
''The Day of the Triffids'' is a 1951 post-apocalyptic novel by the English science fiction author John Wyndham. After most people in the world are blinded by an apparent meteor shower, an aggressive species of plant starts killing people. A ...
''.
Video games such as the ''
Resident Evil
''Resident Evil'', known in Japan as is a Japanese horror game series and media franchise created by Capcom. It consists of survival horror, third-person shooter and first-person shooter games, with players typically surviving in environments ...
'' series also served as an influence for ''28 Days Later'', with Garland crediting the
first game for revitalizing the zombie genre. Inspiration for the "Rage" virus came from real-world infections such as
Ebola and
filoviruses
''Filoviridae'' () is a family of single-stranded negative-sense RNA viruses in the order ''Mononegavirales''. Two members of the family that are commonly known are Ebola virus and Marburg virus. Both viruses, and some of their lesser known re ...
.
He won a Best Screenplay honor at the 2004
Fangoria Chainsaw Awards
The Fangoria Chainsaw Awards are an award ceremony focused on horror and thriller films. Beginning in 1992, the awards were expanded and an annual ceremony was inaugurated to give out the awards. As of 2015, Fangoria also delivers awards to tel ...
for his script of the film.
In 2005, Garland wrote a screenplay for a film adaptation of ''
Halo
Halo, halos or haloes usually refer to:
* Halo (optical phenomenon)
* Halo (religious iconography), a ring of light around the image of a head
HALO, halo, halos or haloes may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Video games
* ''Halo'' (franch ...
''.
D. B. Weiss
Daniel Brett Weiss (; born April 23, 1971) is an American television writer, director, and producer. Along with his collaborator David Benioff, he is best-known as co-creator of ''Game of Thrones'' (2011–2019), the HBO adaptation of George R. ...
and
Josh Olson
Joshua R. Olson is an American screenwriter and podcaster, known for writing the 2005 film ''A History of Violence''.
Career
Olson wrote and directed the low budget horror film ''Infested'' in 2002. He wrote the screenplay for the 2005 film ' ...
rewrote this during 2006 for a 2008 release,
although the film was later canceled.
In 2007, he wrote the screenplay for the film ''
Sunshine'', which was his second screenplay to be directed by Danny Boyle and to star Cillian Murphy. Garland served as an executive producer on ''
28 Weeks Later
''28 Weeks Later'' is a 2007 post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who co-wrote it with Rowan Joffé, Enrique López Lavigne and Jesus Olmo. The sequel to the 2002 film ''28 Days Later'', it stars Robert Carlyle, ...
'', the sequel of ''28 Days Later''. He wrote the screenplay for the 2010 film ''
Never Let Me Go'', based on the
novel by
Kazuo Ishiguro
Sir Kazuo Ishiguro ( ; born 8 November 1954) is a British novelist, screenwriter, musician, and short-story writer. Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, and moved to Britain in 1960 with his parents when he was five.
He is one of the most cr ...
. He also wrote the script for ''
Dredd
''Dredd'' is a 2012 science fiction action film directed by Pete Travis and written and produced by Alex Garland. It is based on the '' 2000 AD'' comic strip '' Judge Dredd'' and its eponymous character created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezq ...
'', an adaptation of the ''
Judge Dredd
Judge Joseph Dredd is a fictional character created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra. He first appeared in the second issue of '' 2000 AD'' (1977), which is a British weekly anthology comic. He is the magazine's longest-running ...
'' comic book series from ''
2000 AD''. In 2018,
Karl Urban
Karl-Heinz Urban (born 7 June 1972) is a New Zealand actor. His career began with appearances in New Zealand films and TV series such as '' Xena: Warrior Princess''. His first Hollywood role was in the 2002 horror film '' Ghost Ship''. Since ...
, who played the eponymous role in the film, stated that it was Garland who deserved credit for also directing ''Dredd''.
Garland made his directorial debut with ''
Ex Machina'', a 2014 feature film based on his own story and screenplay. Starring
Domhnall Gleeson
Domhnall Gleeson (; born 12 May 1983) is an Irish actor and screenwriter. He is the son of actor Brendan Gleeson, with whom he has appeared in a number of films and theatre projects. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Media Arts from Dublin Inst ...
,
Alicia Vikander
Alicia Amanda Vikander (, ; born 3 October 1988) is a Swedish actress. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Critics' Choice Movie Award, as well as receiving nominations for ...
and
Oscar Isaac
Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada (born March 9, 1979) is a Guatemalan-born American actor. Known for his versatility, he has been credited with breaking stereotypes about Latino characters in Hollywood. He was named the best actor of his gene ...
. the film won a Jury Prize at the 2015
Gerardmer Film Festival and earned Garland a nomination for an
Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay
The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Awards, Academy Award for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created in 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story. Be ...
.
Garland's second film,
''Annihilation'' (2018), was based on
Jeff VanderMeer's 2014
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
novel
of the same name. Garland has described it as "an adaptation
hat
A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
was a memory of the book," rather than book-referenced screenwriting, to capture the "dream like nature" and tone of his reading experience. Production began in 2016, and the film was released in February 2018.
In January 2021, Garland was hired to direct his third film, ''
Men
A man is an adult male human. Prior to adulthood, a male human is referred to as a boy (a male child or adolescent). Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chro ...
'', which stars
Jessie Buckley
Jessie Buckley (born 28 December 1989) is an Irish actress and singer. The recipient of a Laurence Olivier Award, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award and three BAFTA Awards, she was listed at number 38 on ''The Irish Times'' list of ...
and
Rory Kinnear
Rory Michael Kinnear (born 17 February 1978) is an English actor and playwright who has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre. In 2014, he won the Olivier Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of William S ...
. The film follows a young woman who goes on a solo vacation to the English countryside after the death of her ex-husband. The following year, it was announced that Garland was reteaming with
A24
A24 is an American independent entertainment company that specializes in film and television production, as well as film distribution. It is based in New York City.
A24 was founded in 2012 by Daniel Katz, David Fenkel and John Hodges. Pr ...
for his fourth feature, ''
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
'', an action epic starring
Kirsten Dunst
Kirsten Caroline Dunst (; born April 30, 1982) is an American actress. She made her acting debut in the short ''Oedipus Wrecks'' directed by Woody Allen in the anthology film ''New York Stories'' (1989). She then gained recognition for her rol ...
,
Wagner Moura
Wagner Maniçoba de Moura (; born 27 June 1976) is a Brazilian actor, director, filmmaker, musician, and journalist. Wagner started his career doing theater in Salvador, where he worked with renowned directors, and soon scored some appearances ...
, and previous collaborators
Stephen McKinley Henderson
Stephen McKinley Henderson (born August 31, 1949) is an American actor and director. Henderson trained at Juilliard School for acting and later became a resident member of the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis from 1976 to 1981. He came to prominen ...
and
Cailee Spaeny
Cailee Spaeny (; born July 24, 1998) is an American actress. Her first major role was in the science fiction action film ''Pacific Rim Uprising'' (2018), which was followed by appearances in ''Bad Times at the El Royale'', ''On the Basis of Sex' ...
.
Television
Garland wrote, served as executive producer, and directed the eight-episode
miniseries
A miniseries or mini-series is a television series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. "Limited series" is another more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. , the popularity of miniseries format h ...
''
Devs
''Devs'' is an American science fiction thriller television miniseries created, written, and directed by Alex Garland. It premiered on March 5, 2020, on FX on Hulu.
Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno) is a software engineer for Amaya, a quantum computing ...
'', about the "mysterious ongoings at a tech company", for
FX; the series was greenlit in August 2018, and premiered 5 March 2020 on FX on
Hulu
Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television serie ...
.
It stars ''Ex Machina'' and ''Annihilation'' actress
Sonoya Mizuno
Sonoya Mizuno (born 1 July 1986) is a Japanese-British actress, model, and ballet dancer.
She notably starred in the miniseries '' Maniac'' and the '' Game of Thrones'' prequel series ''House of the Dragon'', and appeared in all the works direc ...
, alongside
Nick Offerman
Nicholas David Offerman (born June 26, 1970) is an American actor, writer, comedian, producer, and carpenter. He is best known for his role as Ron Swanson in the NBC sitcom ''Parks and Recreation'', for which he received the Television Critics A ...
, Jin Ha,
Zach Grenier
Zach Grenier is an American character actor of film, television and stage. He is best known for his roles in films such as '' Fight Club'', ''Tommy Boy'', and '' Twister'' and for his roles in television such as David Lee in '' The Good Wife'' a ...
,
Stephen McKinley Henderson
Stephen McKinley Henderson (born August 31, 1949) is an American actor and director. Henderson trained at Juilliard School for acting and later became a resident member of the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis from 1976 to 1981. He came to prominen ...
,
Cailee Spaeny
Cailee Spaeny (; born July 24, 1998) is an American actress. Her first major role was in the science fiction action film ''Pacific Rim Uprising'' (2018), which was followed by appearances in ''Bad Times at the El Royale'', ''On the Basis of Sex' ...
, and
Alison Pill
Alison Pill (born November 27, 1985) is a Canadian actress. A former child actress, Pill began her career at age 12, appearing in numerous films and television series. She transitioned to adult roles and her breakthrough came with the television ...
.
Spaeny, who did not audition for the role as Garland had wanted her specifically for it, stated that ''Devs'' was short for ''Development'', and that the series would explore the idea of the
multiverse
The multiverse is a hypothetical group of multiple universes. Together, these universes comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information, and the physical laws and constants that describe them. The di ...
.
Video games
Garland and
Tameem Antoniades co-wrote the video game ''
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West'' for the
PlayStation 3
The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...
and
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation ...
. They won a 2011 award from the
Writer's Guild of Great Britain
The Writers' Guild of Great Britain (WGGB), established in 1959, is a trade union for professional writers. It is affiliated with both the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds (IAWG).
History
The un ...
. Garland also served as a story supervisor on the game ''
DmC: Devil May Cry'' in 2013.
Personal life
Garland is married to actress
Paloma Baeza
Paloma Baeza (born 1 May 1975) is a British actress and director of English and Mexican heritage. Her 2017 film ''Poles Apart'' won the BAFTA for best animated short film in 2018.
Biography
Baeza was born in London and spent her childhood in Me ...
and has two children.
Bibliography
* ''
The Beach'' (1996)
* ''
The Tesseract'' (1998)
* ''
The Coma
''The Coma'' is a novel by Alex Garland, illustrated by his father, Nicholas Garland
Nicholas Withycombe Garland OBE (born 1 September 1935) is a British political cartoonist.
Early life
Garland was born in Hampstead, London. His father was ...
'' (2004)
Filmography
Films
Executive producer
* ''
Big Game'' (2014)
Television
Video games
Collaborators
Since he made his directorial debut, Garland has worked with several actors multiple times.
Critical reception
Awards and nominations
References
External links
*
Backpacker Blues: Spike Magazine interview with Alex GarlandBeach Boy: Salon interview with Alex Garland"Alex Garland is writing Judge Dredd"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Garland, Alex
1970 births
Alumni of the University of Manchester
20th-century English novelists
21st-century English novelists
English screenwriters
English male screenwriters
Living people
People educated at University College School
Postmodern writers
Film directors from London
Writers from London
Science fiction film directors
English people of Lebanese descent
Video game writers
English male novelists
Directors Guild of America Award winners
20th-century English male writers
21st-century English male writers