Richard Ayoade

Acclaimed as a comedy performer, Richard Ayoade is also a Perrier Award-winning writer and director. In his native U.K., he co-created and directed Channel 4's 2004 spoof horror comedy series Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, on which he also appeared. This was followed by a Channel 4 2006 sequel series, Man to Man with Dean Lerner, which he directed, co-wrote, and appeared in. He concurrently performed in the celebrated comedy series The Mighty Boosh, also doing script editing on that show.

Mr. Ayoade's role on the International Emmy Award-winning comedy series The IT Crowd brought him a BAFTA Award; he was in every episode of the show over its five-season run, starring alongside Chris O'Dowd and Katherine Parkinson.

He has directed music videos for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Super Furry Animals, Kasabian, the Last Shadow Puppets, Vampire Weekend, and the Artic Monkeys; and reteamed with the latter group to direct Arctic Monkeys at the Apollo, a 2008 feature-length concert film.

He next directed the feature film Submarine, released in 2011, which he adapted from Joe Dunthorne's novel. The coming-of-age dramatic comedy starred Craig Roberts, Noah Taylor, Sally Hawkins, Paddy Considine, and Yasmin Paige. Mr. Ayoade received BAFTA Award and Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award nominations, and won the British Independent Film Award for Best Screenplay. The film's other honors included the London Critics Circle Film Award for Young British Performer of the Year, voted to Mr. Roberts.

His more recent feature as director was the darkly comedic fable The Double, which he adapted with Avi Korine from the Fyodor Dostoevsky novel. The 2014 release starred Jesse Eisenberg, Wallace Shawn, Cathy Moriarty, James Fox, and Mia Wasikowska, who received a British Independent Film Award nomination for her performance.

Universal Pictures