Tom Hooper

Thomas George Hooper (born 5 October 1972) is a British-Australian film director.

Tom Hooper was born on 5 October 1972 in London, England, the son of Meredith Jean (Rooney) and Richard Hooper.

Meredith is an Australian author and academic and Richard is an English media businessman.

Hooper was educated at Highgate School and Westminster School.

His initial interest in drama was triggered by his English and drama teacher at Highgate, former Royal Shakespeare Company actor Roger Mortimer, who produced an annual school play.

At the age of 12, Hooper read a book entitled How to Make Film and Television and decided he wanted to become a director.

For the next year Hooper researched filmmaking from publications such as On Camera by Harris Watts.

Aged 13, he made his first film, entitled Runaway Dog, using a clockwork 16mm Bolex camera his uncle had given to him.

Hooper said: "The clockwork would run out after thirty seconds, so the maximum shot length was thirty seconds. I could only afford a hundred feet of Kodachrome reversal film, which cost about twenty-five [pounds], and you had to send off for two weeks to be processed. I could only make silent movies, because sound was too expensive and complicated."

He slowed down the frame rate of the camera so he could maximise what little film stock he had.

Hooper classified the short, about a dog which kept running away from its owner, as a comedy, and filmed it on location in Oxfordshire.

When Hooper was 14, his film Bomber Jacket came runner-up in a BBC younger filmmakers' competition.

The short starred Hooper's brother as a boy who discovers a bomber jacket and a photograph hidden in a cupboard and learns his grandfather died in World War II.

Another of Hooper's short films, entitled Countryside, depicts a nuclear holocaust.

Hooper finished school aged 16, then wrote the script for his first professional short film, entitled Painted Faces.

He spent the next two years raising capital for the short by courting advertisement directors, whose financial dominance during the late 1980s was noticed by Hooper.

Director Paul Weiland invested in the short, which provided Hooper with the equipment he needed.

After two years of financing and production, Painted Faces was completed.

Hooper wrote, produced, directed and edited it.

Hooper began making short films as a teenager and had his first professional short, Painted Faces, broadcast on Channel 4 in 1992.

At Oxford University, Hooper directed plays and television commercials.

After graduating, he directed episodes of Quayside, Byker Grove, EastEnders, and Cold Feet on British television.

It was sold to Channel 4 and broadcast on the channel's First Frame strand in 1992, had a screening at the 35th London Film Festival and had a limited theatrical release.

After taking a gap year to finance Painted Faces, Hooper read English at University College, Oxford.

He joined the Oxford University Dramatic Society, where he directed Kate Beckinsale in A View from the Bridge and Emily Mortimer in The Trial.

Hooper also had his first paid directing work, earning £200 for a corporate Christmas video, and he directed his first television advertisements, including one for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 featuring Right Said Fred.

He continues to direct advertisements alongside television and film projects.

In 1996 he joined the commercial production company John S. Clarke Productions and in 2001 he signed with Infinity Productions.

Hooper has also directed commercials including an ad for Jaguar with Tom Hiddleston, Ben Kingsley, and Mark Strong, which aired during Super Bowl XLV.

His commercial work is produced through international production company SMUGGLER.

In the 2000s, Hooper directed the major BBC costume dramas Love in a Cold Climate (2001) and Daniel Deronda (2002), as well as the 2003 revival of ITV's Prime Suspect series, starring Helen Mirren.

Hooper made his feature film debut with Red Dust (2004), a British drama starring Hilary Swank and Chiwetel Ejiofor, before directing Helen Mirren again in the Company Pictures/HBO Films historical drama Elizabeth I (2005).

He continued working for HBO on the television film Longford (2006) and in John Adams (2008), a seven-part serial on the life of the American president.

Hooper returned to features with The Damned United (2009), a fact-based film about the English football manager Brian Clough (played by Michael Sheen).

The following year saw the release of the historical drama The King's Speech (2010), starring Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush, which was met with critical acclaim.

Hooper's next film was Les Misérables (2012), which featured an all-star cast led by Hugh Jackman.

His 2015 film, The Danish Girl, was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British Film.

Later, Hooper directed two episodes of His Dark Materials and a live-action adaptation of the musical Cats, for which he won three Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Director, Worst Picture, and Worst Screenplay.

Hooper's work was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for Prime Suspect and John Adams, won one for Elizabeth I, and was nominated for the British Academy (BAFTA) TV Craft Award for Best Director for Longford.

The King's Speech won multiple awards, including Best Director wins for Hooper from the Directors Guild of America and the Academy Awards and a Best Director nomination from BAFTA.