Anthony McCarten

Anthony is a celebrated film-maker, novelist and playwright, who divides his time between New Zealand and London.

Anthony received early international success with his play Ladies Night. Translated into twelve languages it remains New Zealand’s most commercially successful play of all time, and in addition to eight national tours of Britain alone it continues to play worldwide. In 2001 it won France’s premiere theatre award for comedy, the Moliere Prize. He has written fifteen other plays, ten of which have premiered in New Zealand. In 2022, Anthony had two productions premiere on Broadway; his play The Collaboration and A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical. 

Anthony is also a film director and producer whose first feature film, Via Satellite, which he adapted from his own award-winning stageplay, was invited to several film festivals including London, Cannes, Toronto, Melbourne, Hawaii and Seattle. His screenplay for The Theory of Everything which he wrote and produced was nominated for an Academy Award. His film Darkest Hour was nominated for the 2018 BAFTA Award for Best British Film. Anthony wrote the screenplays for Bohemian Rhapsody and The Two Popes for which he was a nominee for an Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe for Best Adapted Screenplay. His Whitney Houston biopic, I Wanna Dance with Somebody, opens in December 2022. 

His first novel, Spinners, (Picador) has been translated into six languages, and was voted one of the top ten novels of 2000 by readers of Esquire magazine. 

He has also adapted his second novel, The English Harem (Picador), as a feature film for ITV, which drew 7 million viewers in the UK when it aired in 2005. The novel went on to be a small-publishers bestseller in the UK in 2006. Novelist Timothy Mo named this book his Novel Of The Year.

He currently resides in the Cotswolds. He is married and has three children.