Nick Willing

Writer/Director Nick willing has a very varied filmography. Although he is perhaps best known for his popular sci fi and fantasy television shows he’s also made theatrically released movies, thrillers and social realist dramas. The one common thread is his fascination with how the dark side of human is nature is expressed in fairy tales, myths and archetypal story telling.

After an early career in the golden era of music videos he wrote and directed “Photographing Fairies” ( starring Ben Kingsley, Toby Stephens and Frances Barber ) which was released in cinemas in 1997 and won 5 awards including the Melies D’Or. This led to a lavish television production of “Alice in Wonderland” a faithful adaptation which is often used in schools and colleges and still regularly appears on NBC and Channel 4 at Christmas. The all star cast included Miranda Richardson, Martin Short, Gene Wilder, Ben Kingsley, Christopher Lloyd, Robbie Coltrane, George Wendt, Peter Ustinov, Pete Postlethwaite, Tina Majorino and Whoopi Goldberg, and drew 25 million viewers to its first broadcast on NBC and won 4 Primetime Emmys and an RTS award. This led to a run of grand television mini-series – the epic Greek Myth “Jason and the Argonauts” ( starring Dennis Hopper, Frank Langella, Olivia Williams, Adrian Lester and Derek Jacobi ) “The Infinite Worlds of HG Wells” ( 6 part ), the pilot episode of BBC’s “Sea of Souls” ( which spawned 4 seasons ) and the Christmas special to commemorate 50 years of Jackanory “The Magician of Samarkand” and “Muddle Earth” – the latter of which established a long running series.

Two theatrical feature films followed – “Close your Eyes” and “The River King” – before the ground breaking Wizard of Oz homage “Tin Man” a 6 part series starring Zooey Deschenel, Richard Dreyfuss and Alan Cumming which first coined the term ‘a reimagining’ and ushered in a string of reimagined fantasy shows in the US. It is still the highest rated show in the history of the Syfy network and most watched Cable mini series of 2007. It was nominated for 9 primetime Emmys. Syfy ordered two more ‘events’ from Nick which he wrote and directed – “Alice” starring Kathy Bates, Colm Meaney, Tim Curry, Harry Dean Stanton, Matt Frewer, Andrew Lee Potts and Caterina Scorsone – and – “Neverland” which also aired on SKY UK and starred Rhys Ifans, Anna Friel, Bob Hoskins, Charles Dance and Charlie Rowe. Neverland was the second highest rated mini series in the history of Syfy, after Tin Man, and Alice the third. Nick spent the following year researching and shooting “Baby Sellers” in India and Brazil – a docu-drama style exposé of the world of baby trafficking – which was invited to premiere at the United Nations in New York in front of 500 ambassadors and NGOs. It was the highest rated cable program of the night with 2.6 million viewers for Lifetime and nominated for 7 Canadian Screen Awards.

Last year he made the feature film “Altar” ( aka “The Haunting of Radcliffe House” ) starring Michael Modine and Olivia Williams which explores his fascination with the Uncanny ( Das Unheimliche ) and uses the cinematic language of British psychological horror movies of the 70’s. Nick then went on to create, produce, write and direct the 13 x 1 hour series “Olympus” which gets under the skin of the world of Greek Tragedy, gods and monsters.

He is now making a feature documentary about his mother, the painter Paula Rego.