Roger Michell
Roger Michell (5 June 1956 – 22 September 2021) was a South African-born British director whose versatile career spanned theatre, television, and cinema, with particular acclaim for the romantic comedy Notting Hill (1999), which became one of the highest-grossing British films of its era.[1][2] Born in Pretoria to a British diplomat father, he experienced an itinerant childhood across Lebanon, Syria, and Czechoslovakia before boarding at Clifton College in Bristol and earning a degree from Queens' College, Cambridge, where he engaged deeply in university drama.[1] Michell's early professional work focused on theatre, serving as an assistant director at the Royal Court Theatre with figures like John Osborne and Samuel Beckett, and later directing productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, including acclaimed plays such as Blue/Orange and Consent.[1][3] Transitioning to screen via the BBC Directors’ Course, he garnered two BAFTA Awards for television adaptations, notably the 1995 Jane Austen miniseries Persuasion and the 2014 drama The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies.[1] In film, beyond Notting Hill—starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts and earning a BAFTA Peter Sellers Award for Comedy—he directed intimate character-driven works like The Mother (2003), Venus (2006) featuring Peter O'Toole, and Enduring Love (2004), alongside ensemble pieces such as Changing Lanes (2002) and Le Week-end (2013).[1][2][3] Known for eliciting nuanced performances through masterful use of silence and actor collaboration, Michell also contributed to directors' advocacy, co-chairing film committees and developing creative rights agreements during his tenure on the Directors UK board.[3] He was married twice—first to actress Kate Buffery, with whom he had two children, and later to Anna Maxwell Martin, with two more children—separating from the latter in 2020 shortly before his unexpected death at age 65.[1]