Mike Newell
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Michael Cormac Newell (born 28 March, 1942) is an English director and producer of motion pictures for the screen and for television.
Born in St Albans, Hertfordshire, Newell first received education at the St Albans School and the University of Cambridge. He then attended a three year training course at Granada Television, with the intention of entering theatre. However, he eventually graduated into film direction, and his first critically acclaimed movie was Dance with a Stranger, a biographical drama starring Miranda Richardson as Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Great Britain. For his directing efforts, Newell won the Award of the Youth at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival.
Newell continued his successes in the film industry with Enchanted April, an adaptation of the 1922 novel The Enchanted April; Miranda Richardson received a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical and Joan Plowright won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy/Musical.
The 1994 comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral was also critically acclaimed – it won numerous awards, including a César Award (Best Foreign Film), a Golden Globe (Best Actor - Hugh Grant), and a few London Critics Circle Film Awards (Best Director, Film, Producer, and Screenwriter).
Since these award-winning productions, Newell has directed solid movies, but none have been exceptional. He directed Donnie Brasco (starring Al Pacino and Johnny Depp), Pushing Tin (starring John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Cate Blanchett, and Angelina Jolie), and most recently Mona Lisa Smile (starring Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, and Julia Stiles). In 2003, he accepted the offer to direct Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth installation of the critically acclaimed Harry Potter series of fantasy novels and movies (and third time he has worked with Miranda Richardson). Ironically, he will be the first British director (Chris Columbus was American and Alfonso Cuarón was Mexican) of the series written by British author J.K. Rowling and starring an almost entirely British cast.