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Edgar Wright
Wright at the San Diego Comic-Con International in July 2010.
Born	Edgar Howard Wright (1974-04-18) 18 April 1974 (age 39) Poole, Dorset, England
Occupation	Director/writer
Years active	1994–present
Partner(s)	Anna Kendrick (2009–2013)

Edgar Howard Wright (born 18 April 1974) is an English film and television director and writer. He worked with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost on the films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, the TV series Spaced, the upcoming 2013 film The World's End, and he directed the film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. He co-wrote Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin with Joe Cornish and Steven Moffat. He will also direct a film adaptation of the Marvel Comics superhero Ant-Man.

Early life and career [edit]

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 and 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 attributes his edgy and comedic style to 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]

Spaced [edit]

In 1998 writer/actors Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson 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 two brief appearances in Spaced, one 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. The other is a brief appearance during the montage in the episode "Gone" where Daisy describes to Tim what she thinks would be a fun night out for the two. Edgar is sitting on the subway (with a beard) next to Tim and Daisy.

Ties to the music industry and music video work [edit]

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 Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy [edit]

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 instalment 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 instalment, The World's End, will be released on July 19th 2013. The film will be about several friends who reunite when one decides to repeat a pub crawl they did 20 years earlier. They have to get to The World's End pub without ending up in the gutter in order to do this, but some unusual powers are at work and what happens to them may determine what happens to humans as a species.^[3]

Other work and future projects [edit]

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!".

In 2010, Wright was offered the chance to direct Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol before Brad Bird was chosen.^[4]

Also in 2010, Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, starring Michael Cera was released.

In November 2011, The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by Peter Jackson and based on Hergé's The Adventures of Tintin was released. Wright co-wrote the film with writing partner, Joe Cornish and Steven Moffat. The film also co-starred Wright's frequent collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

Wright has been developing a live-action film based on the Marvel Comics superhero Ant-Man with Joe Cornish. The film is scheduled to be released on November 6, 2015.^[5]

Wright also has numerous other projects in development, including Them, Baby Driver and a film version of The Night Stalker TV series, starring Johnny Depp, which was announced in early 2012.^[6]

Personal life [edit]

In 2009, Wright began a relationship with actress Anna Kendrick^[7] after meeting on the set of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.^[8][9] The couple split in early 2013.^[10]

Wright was previously in a relationship with singer-songwriter and former Ash guitarist Charlotte Hatherley.

Collaborations [edit]

Wright has cast certain actors in more than one of his films/TV shows. Simon Pegg is Wright's most frequent collaborator, appearing in six of his films. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World isn't listed because no actor has collaborated in that film.

	Dead Right	A Fistful of Fingers	Asylum	Spaced	Shaun of the Dead	Hot Fuzz	Don't	The World's End
Bill Bailey			N	N		N
Paddy Considine						N		N
Joe Cornish					N	N
Adam Buxton					N	N
Martin Curtis	N	N
Julia Deakin				N	N	N
Kevin Eldon				N		N
Patricia Franklin					N	N
Martin Freeman					N	N		N
Nick Frost				N	N	N	N	N
Mark Gatiss				N	N		N
Mark Heap				N				N
Jessica Hynes			N	N	N
Bill Nighy					N	N
Simon Pegg			N	N	N	N	N	N
Robert Popper				N	N	N
Lucy Punch						N	N
Peter Serafinowicz				N	N		N
Reece Shearsmith				N	N			N
Michael Smiley				N	N		N	N
Rafe Spall					N	N	N	N
Stuart Wilson						N	N

Filmography [edit]

Film [edit]

Short films [edit]

Television [edit]

Awards and Nomination [edit]

References [edit]

External links [edit]

Film portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Edgar Wright

• Edgar Wright at the Internet Movie Database
• Official website
• The Director Interviews: Edgar Wright, Hot Fuzz at Filmmaker Magazine
• 2004 interview with 2000ADReview
• Edgar Wright on Hot Fuzz
• Edgar Wright Fansite