Joe Wright

Born: Islington, London, UK

The BAFTA-winning director made his big screen debut with only the second adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice.

The movie - starring Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFadyen - was previously made 65 years before with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson in the roles.

The son of puppeteers who founded Islington's Little Angel Theatre in London, Wright is dyslexic and left school with no O-Levels.

However, he joined improvisational workshops at the Anna Scher Theatre School and studied fine art and film at Camberwell Art College and later at St Martins College in London.

He made his first short - Whatever Happened To Walthamstow Marshes - while at Camberwell and in 1993 was awarded a Fuji Film Scholarship to make The Middle Ground.

In 1997, he made the short Crocodile Snap and went on to directed the Kathy Burke-scripted short The End the following year.

Wright made his small screen debut directing Nature Boy in 2000 (for which he was BAFTA-nominated) and went on to make the BBC series Bodily Harm with Tim Spall.

In 2003, the series Charles II: The Power and the Passion, starring Rufus Sewell, landed Wright a BAFTA award.

In 2005, he adapted Pride & Prejudice from a script written by novelist Deborah Moggach.