Gareth Edwards

Education

He attended Higham Lane School. Edwards studied Bachelor (Honours) Film & Video at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, formerly the Surrey Institute of Art & Design, graduating in 1996.

Career

He is best known for directing the 2014 reboot of Godzilla but first gained widespread recognition for Monsters (2010), an independent film in which he served as writer, director, cinematographer, and visual effects artist. He will next direct the epic space opera film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), the first in the Star Wars Anthology series. Edwards is also the patron of the United Kingdom charity ASSERT. Edwards was born in 1975 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire.

He is of Welsh parentage.

Since childhood, he wanted to direct his own films, stating that "Star Wars is definitely the reason that I wanted to become a filmmaker". In 2012, he received an honorary Master of Arts from UCA. In 2008 he entered Sciences-Fi-London, a 48 hour film challenge, where a movie had to be created start-to-finish in just two days, within certain criteria.

Edwards personally created the special effects for Monsters using off-the-shelf equipment. Besides the two main actors, the crew consisted of just five people.

The success of Monsters brought enough awareness in Hollywood to land Edwards a few major projects.

After the film"s release, he did interviews in Hollywood with several studios, including Legendary Pictures. In January 2011, Edwards landed his first major Hollywood feature, as the director of the 2014 Godzilla reboot from Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures. In May 2014 it was announced that Edwards would direct the first Star Wars stand-alone film with writer Gary Whitta, due to be released on 16 December 2016 and will return to direct the Godzilla sequel, now planned as a trilogy, with the first sequel targeted to be released on 8 June 2018.

In March 2014, it was revealed that Edwards" spin-off Star Wars film, now written by Chris Weitz and starring Felicity Jones, would be titled Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, set for release on 16 December 2016.

Three of his influences for film-making are George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino.

Achievements

• He got his start in visual effects. Creating digital effects for prestigious shows such as Nova, Perfect Disaster and Heroes and Villains, the latter of which a series for which he made 250 visual effects which won international recognition. Edwards won the contest and went on to write and direct Monsters, his first feature.