Biografia
Stephen Woolley is an English film producer and director whose extensive career has spanned over forty years. In February 2019, he received the prestigious BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema. As a producer, Woolley earned an Oscar nomination for The Crying Game (1992) and has produced several multi-Academy Award-nominated films, including Mona Lisa (1986), Little Voice (1998), Michael Collins (1996), The End of the Affair (1999), Interview with the Vampire (1993), Carol (2016), and Living (2022). He manages the production company Number 9 Films alongside his partner Elizabeth Karlsen.
Woolley’s producing debut was The Company of Wolves (1984), though his career began earlier in 1976 as an usher at The Screen on the Green, an art-house cinema in Islington, London. He later joined the exhibition division of the film collective The Other Cinema in London’s West End, before owning and operating the renowned repertory venue The Scala Cinema, initially located at the same site and later moved to Kings Cross. In the early 1980s, Woolley co-founded Palace Video with Nik Powell, focusing on distributing cult and international art films that mirrored the programming of his Scala cinema.
Palace Video’s releases included David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977), Derek Jarman’s The Tempest (1979), and Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (1982). The company evolved into Palace Pictures, a theatrical distributor responsible for UK releases such as the French cult film Diva (1981), Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981), Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas (1984), the Coen brothers’ Blood Simple (1984), Rob Reiner’s When Harry Met Sally (1988), as well as films by John Cassavetes, John Waters, Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, Peter Greenaway, Fassbinder, and Bertolucci. Palace Pictures began producing films in 1984 with its first feature, The Company of Wolves, directed by Neil Jordan, marking the start of many collaborations between Woolley and Jordan.
Many projects from Palace Pictures received initial support from Channel 4, and Woolley played a key role in launching several first-time directors. Woolley and Powell also forged a partnership with Miramax, which handled the US distribution of various Palace films, including Scandal (1989), A Rage in Harlem (1991), Hardware (1990), and The Crying Game (1992).
Having built his reputation through low-budget yet high-quality productions, Woolley began working on more ambitious projects. After Palace Pictures closed in 1992, Woolley and Powell founded Scala Pictures, producing films such as Backbeat (1994), Neon Bible (1995), Fever Pitch (1997), Little Voice (1998), and Twenty Four Seven (1997), along with other low-budget UK features. Concurrently, Woolley worked on three studio projects with Warner Brothers. Following the global success of Interview with the Vampire (1994), starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, and Michael Collins (1996), starring Liam Neeson and winner of the Golden Lion at Venice, Woolley and Neil Jordan established Company of Wolves, backed by DreamWorks, producing In Dreams (1999), The Actors (2003), Intermission (2003), and Not I (2000).
In 2002, Woolley and long-time producing partner Elizabeth Karlsen founded Number 9 Films. Their productions include When Did You Last See Your Father (2007), Breakfast on Pluto (2005), How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008), Made in Dagenham (2010), Byzantium (2012), Great Expectations (2012), Hyena (2014), Their Finest (2015), Carol (2015), Youth (2015), The Limehouse Golem (2016), On Chesil Beach (2017), Mothering Sunday (2021), and Living (2022).
For 2024, Woolley and Karlsen have produced The Salt Path, starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, and The Assessment, featuring Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Olsen, and Himesh Patel. They are also producing the UK/Japanese feature A Pale View of Hills, reuniting with Kazuo Ishiguro.
Woolley made his directorial debut with the 2005 film Stoned, a biopic of Brian Jones. He is also the recipient of the distinguished Producers Guild Award (PGA) for The Crying Game.
