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About The Filmmakers

Green Zone is director PAUL GREENGRASS’ (Directed by/Produced by) seventh feature film. He has also had a long and distinguished career in British television.

His most recent feature, The Bourne Ultimatum, received three Academy Awards® and two BAFTAs (Orange British Academy Film Awards) in 2008. The Bourne Ultimatum also won the Empire Award for Best Film and brought Greengrass Best Director honors at the London Film Critics’ Circle Awards. Greengrass received Best Director nominations for The Bourne Ultimatum from the BAFTAs and Empire Awards, among others.

Greengrass previously directed The Bourne Supremacy, his first collaboration with actor Matt Damon. The 2004 action-thriller grossed more than $50 million during its domestic opening weekend and went on to earn more than $175 million at the U.S. box office and more than $287 million worldwide. It also confirmed the public’s appetite for the Jason Bourne saga based on Robert Ludlum’s best-selling suspense novels.

In between Bourne blockbusters, Greengrass stunned audiences with the powerful dramatic feature United 93, the story—told in real time—of passengers and crew rallying against hijackers on September 11, 2001. Greengrass wrote and directed United 93 and was one of its producers. He earned an Academy Award® nomination for Best Director in 2007 and a Best Original Screenplay nomination from the Writers Guild of America. He won BAFTA’s David Lean Award for Direction and Best Director awards from the London Film Critics’ Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Society of Film Critics, among others.

In 2002, Greengrass illuminated a dark day in Irish history with another haunting drama, Bloody Sunday. Greengrass wrote and directed the documentary-style feature film depicting the 1972 civil rights march in Derry, Northern Ireland, in which 13 unarmed civilians were shot dead by British soldiers. Bloody Sunday won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and the World Cinema Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Greengrass was named Best Director at the British Independent Film Awards.

Greengrass has written and directed television films concerned with social and political issues, including The Murder of Stephen Lawrence (winner of BAFTA’s Best Single Drama Award in 2000 and the Special Jury Prize at the BANFF World Television Festival), as well as The Fix, The One That Got Away and Open Fire.

He produced and co-wrote the 2004 television film Omagh, set in the aftermath of the notorious Real IRA car-bombing that killed 29 people in Omagh, Northern Ireland. Omagh won BAFTA’s Best Single Drama Award in 2005 and was named Best Irish Film at the Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTA) in 2004. Omagh was also nominated for the IFTA’s Best Script award.

Greengrass spent the first decade of his career covering global conflict for the ITV current affairs program, World in Action. He has written and directed many documentaries, including the Live Aid documentary Food, Trucks and Rock and Roll. He is also an author and co-wrote the controversial bestseller “Spycatcher,” with Peter Wright, former assistant director of Britain’s MI5.

Greengrass was born in Cheam, Surrey, England, and studied at Queen’s College, Cambridge University.

BRIAN HELGELAND (Written by) has written and adapted many features throughout his career as a screenwriter, including the Academy Award®-winning film L.A. Confidential, for which he received an Oscar®. Among his credits are his original screenplays for Conspiracy Theoryand A Knight’s Tale, along with his adaptations of Payback, Man on Fire and Mystic River, for which he received an Academy Award® nomination. Helgeland also wrote the upcoming Robin Hood, which is directed by Ridley Scott and stars Russell Crowe.

In addition to his work as a screenwriter, Helgeland has directed three feature films and is soon to direct his original screenplay Sidney Grimes for Sony Pictures.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran (Inspired by the Book “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” by) is a senior correspondent and associate editor at The Washington Post.

He has served as the Post’s national editor and as an assistant managing editor. From April 2003 to October 2004, he was the Post’s bureau chief in Baghdad, where he was responsible for covering the reconstruction of Iraq and supervising a team of Post correspondents. He lived in Baghdad for much of the six months before the war, reporting on the United Nations weapons-inspections process and the buildup to the conflict. Before the U.S.-led war in Iraq, he was the Post’s bureau chief in Cairo. Prior to that assignment, he was the Post’s Southeast Asia correspondent, based in Jakarta, Indonesia. In the months following September 11, 2001, he was part of a team of Post reporters who covered the war in Afghanistan and events in Pakistan.

He is the author of “Imperial Life in the Emerald City,” a best-selling account of the troubled American effort to reconstruct Iraq. The book, which provides a firsthand view of life inside Baghdad’s Green Zone, won the Overseas Press Club award, the Ron Ridenhour Prize and Britain’s Samuel Johnson Prize. The New York Times named it one of the 10 Best Books of 2007. It also was a finalist for the National Book Award and the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism.

He took a sabbatical from the Post in 2005 to serve as the journalist in residence at the International Reporting Project at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., and as a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

Chandrasekaran appears regularly on CNN, MSNBC, PBS NewsHour and National Public Radio.

He joined the Post in 1994 as a reporter on the Metropolitan staff. He subsequently served as the paper’s Washington-based national technology correspondent. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, he holds a degree in political science from Stanford University, where he was editor in chief of The Stanford Daily. He lives with his wife in Washington, D.C.

Working Title Films, co-chaired by TIM BEVAN and ERIC FELLNER (Produced by) since 1992, is one of the world’s leading film production companies. DEBRA HAYWARD (Executive Producer) serves as head of film and is creatively responsible for the company’s slate of motion pictures, in conjunction with her U.S. counterpart, LIZA CHASIN (Executive Producer).

Founded in 1983, Working Title has made more than 90 films that have grossed more than $4.5 billion worldwide. Its films have won six Academy Awards® and 26 BAFTAs. Bevan and Fellner have received the Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema at the Orange British Academy Film Awards, and both have been honored with the title of commanders of the Order of the British Empire. Last year, they received a career tribute award at the Gotham Independent Film Awards.

Working Title’s extensive and diverse list of credits include:

Seven films with Joel and Ethan Coen: Burn After Reading; Fargo; The Hudsucker Proxy; The Big Lebowski; O Brother, Where Art Thou?; The Man Who Wasn’t There; and A Serious Man
Six collaborations with writer Richard Curtis: Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and Notting Hill, as well as Love Actually and The Boat That Rocked, both of which Curtis also directed
Bean,directed by Mel Smith; Mr. Bean’s Holiday, directed by Steve Bendelack; and Johnny English,directed by Peter Howitt, all starring Rowan Atkinson
Pride & Prejudice and Atonement, directed by Joe Wright
United 93, directed by Paul Greengrass
Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, directed by Edgar Wright
About a Boy, directed by Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz
Definitely, Maybe,directed by Adam Brooks
The Interpreter, directed by Sydney Pollack
Dead Man Walking, directed by Tim Robbins
Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age, directed by Shekhar Kapur
Frost/Nixon, directed by Ron Howard
Nanny McPhee, directed by Kirk Jones, and Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang,directed by Susanna White, which will be released this year
Billy Elliot, directed by Stephen Daldry. The success of the film has continued on the London, Sydney and Broadway stages with a stage-musical version directed by Daldry—with songs composed by Sir Elton John.

LLOYD LEVIN’s (Produced by) most recent film, Watchmen, for Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures, based on Alan Moore and David Gibbons’ seminal graphic novel, directed by Zack Snyder (300) and starring Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Patrick Wilson, was released March 6, 2009. “Watchmen” is the only graphic novel to win the Hugo Award and be named among Time magazine’s “100 Best English-Language Novels From 1923 to the Present.”

The year before, Levin produced Hellboy II: The Golden Army with Lawrence Gordon, continuing an ongoing association with Gordon that began in the mid-1980s. Directed by Guillermo del Toro, Hellboy II starred Ron Perlman, Selma Blair and Doug Jones, and it featured the voice of Seth MacFarlane. Levin had previously teamed with Gordon to produce the first film in the franchise, 2004’s Hellboy, based on Mike Mignola’s Dark Horse comic-book series.

In 2006, Levin produced the acclaimed real-life drama United 93, directed by Paul Greengrass. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards® including Best Director. United 93 also received numerous other honors, including Best Picture awards from such top critics’ groups as the New York Film Critics Circle and the London Film Critics’ Circle. Additionally, it was nominated for six BAFTAs including Best British Film, and it won for Best Director and Best Editing.

Levin gained his first producing credit in 1988 as an associate producer on the blockbuster Die Hard, which was based upon Roderick Thorp’s 1979 novel “Nothing Lasts Forever.” Levin brought the book to Lawrence Gordon’s attention and subsequently oversaw the film’s development. He then served as associate producer on 1989’s Oscar®-nominated hit Field of Dreams, directed by Phil Alden Robinson and starring Kevin Costner, and K-9, starring James Belushi.

In 1990, Levin was executive producer on both Die Hard 2: Die Harder and Predator 2. The following year, he produced The Rocketeer, directed by Joe Johnston and starring Bill Campbell and Jennifer Connelly.

Joining Lawrence Gordon at Largo Entertainment, Levin served as president of production. He oversaw the production of such hit movies as Point Break, directed by Kathryn Bigelow and starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze; Unlawful Entry, starring Kurt Russell and Ray Liotta; and Timecop, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. He also executive produced Used People, starring Shirley MacLaine, Kathy Bates and Marcello Mastroianni.

Departing Largo, Levin continued his partnership with Gordon as a producer. In 1997, he executive produced The Devil’s Own, starring Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt, and also produced Event Horizon, starring Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill. The next year, he produced Paul Thomas Anderson’s breakthrough movie, Boogie Nights, with an ensemble cast that included Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly, Heather Graham and Burt Reynolds. The film earned numerous honors, including three Oscar® nominations.

In 1999, Levin produced Mystery Men, starring Ben Stiller, William H. Macy and Geoffrey Rush, and followed it with Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, starring Angelina Jolie. Based on the popular video game, the film went on to gross more than $280 million at the worldwide box office, making it the most successful action movie of all time starring a female lead.

Levin’s other film credits include K-PAX, directed by Iain Softley and starring Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges, and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, with Angelina Jolie reprising the title role.

Levin is about to begin production on an adaptation of James Patterson’s best-selling “Alex Cross” series, relaunching the franchise that began with the Morgan Freeman films Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider in the late ’90s. Since the first two movies, Patterson’s “Alex Cross” series has gone on to sell 65 million copies worldwide. David Twohy (writer of The Fugitive and director of Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick) will direct the film.

Other upcoming films Levin is producing include the thriller Meg, based on Steve Alten’s best-selling book; Echo, based on Terry Moore’s acclaimed graphic novel; and Cryptozoo, based on writer/artist Wayne Barlowe’s original screenplay.

BARRY ACKROYD, BSC (Director of Photography) shot United 93 for director Paul Greengrass and received a BAFTA nomination for his work on the award-winning film.

Ackroyd is well known for his long creative association with British director Ken Loach. Their recent collaboration, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, won the Palme d’Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. A period drama set in Ireland, the film brought Ackroyd Best Cinematographer honors at the 2006 European Film Awards.

His first film with Loach was Riff-Raff (1991), followed by Raining Stones (1993), Ladybird Ladybird (1994), Land and Freedom (1995), Carla’s Song (1996), My Name Is Joe (1998), Bread & Roses (2000), The Navigators (2001), Sweet Sixteen (2002) and Ae Fond Kiss... (2004). Television projects with Loach include The View From the Woodpile (1989), Time to Go (1988) and The Flickering Flame: A Story of Resistance (aka Les Dockers de Liverpool, 1997).

For documentarian Nick Broomfield, Ackroyd shot The Leader, His Driver and the Driver’s Wife (1991), Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1992) and Tracking Down Maggie: The Unofficial Biography of Margaret Thatcher (1994).

He received a BAFTA nomination for Best Photography and Lighting (Fiction/Entertainment) for the 2004 miniseries The Lost Prince, directed by Stephen Poliakoff. His latest film credits include Battle in Seattle, for Stuart Townsend; The Hurt Locker, for Kathryn Bigelow; and Looking for Eric, for Ken Loach.

A native of Manchester, Ackroyd studied film at Portsmouth College of Art.

His own film, The Butterfly Man, was nominated for the 1997 BAFTA Best Short Film.

DOMINIC WATKINS (Production Designer) has previously designed two films for director Paul Greengrass: United 93 and The Bourne Supremacy. The British-born Watkins also designed Jon Turteltaub’s National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Michael Bay’s Bad Boys II, Nick Cassavetes’ Alpha Dog and Guy Ritchie’s short film The Hire: Star.

Watkins lives in Los Angeles.

CHRISTOPHER ROUSE’s, ACE (Editor) keen sense of story and ability to cut highly charged action sequences have made him a key member of Paul Greengrass’ filmmaking team. Green Zone marks their fourth film together.

Rouse won an Academy Award® for his work on the 2007 blockbuster The Bourne Ultimatum. He also received a BAFTA and the American Cinema Editors’ Eddie Award for his contribution to this film.

He was Oscar®-nominated the preceding year for Greengrass’ United 93. He won a BAFTA and an Online Film Critics Society Award for United 93, and he was nominated for the Eddie. Rouse also cut The Bourne Supremacy for Greengrass and its predecessor, The Bourne Identity, for director Doug Liman.

Rouse’s credits also include John Woo’s Paycheck and Frank Marshall’s Eight Below. He co-edited The Italian Job for director F. Gary Gray, and he was the additional editor on Manito, an award winner at the Sundance, Tribeca and South by Southwest film festivals.

In 2001, Rouse received an Emmy nomination for editing the miniseries Anne Frank: The Whole Story. He also edited episodes of the award-winning From the Earth to the Moon, a miniseries produced by Tom Hanks and Ron Howard.

Rouse lives in Los Angeles. He is the son of Russell Rouse, an Oscar® winner for the screenplay for Pillow Talk.

A graduate of the Wimbledon School of Art, SAMMY SHELDON (Costume Designer) began her career as an assistant designer on films including Ridley Scott’s Gladiator and Jake Scott’s Plunkett & Macleane. She went on to design costumes for Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down and the mockumentary The Calcium Kid, starring Orlando Bloom. She received her second BAFTA nomination for Best Costume Design for The Merchant of Venice, starring Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons. Sheldon was previously nominated for her work on the BBC’s modern adaptation of “Canterbury Tales.”

Sheldon has also designed the cross-dressing comedy Kinky Boots; The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; V for Vendetta; Stardust and Kick-Ass, for Matthew Vaughn; Hellboy II: The Golden Army, for Guillermo del Toro; and, most recently, Rob Letterman’s Gulliver’s Travels with Jack Black.

Sheldon was born in Manchester and lives in London.

PETER CHIANG (Visual Effects Supervisor) previously worked with director Paul Greengrass on The Bourne Ultimatum and United 93. For his work on Bourne, Chiang received BAFTA and Satellite Award nominations. Chiang also received a BAFTA nomination for his work on Peter Hewitt’s The Borrowers.

Chiang’s additional film credits include Stardust, Flyboys, Pride & Prejudice, Kingdom of Heaven, The Chronicles of Riddick, Johnny English, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Pitch Black, Elizabeth, Batman, Hackers and Enemy at the Gates.

A frequent creative collaborator with director Paul Greengrass, JOHN POWELL (Music by) composed the scores for United 93, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum.

Powell’s work spans many genres. He received a BAFTA nomination for his Happy Feet score in 2007, a Grammy Award nomination for the Happy Feet soundtrack in 2008 and an Annie Award for his score to Kung Fu Panda in 2008. He has composed music for other top animated films including Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Robots, Bolt, Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!, Chicken Run and Antz. His score for Shrek was BAFTA-nominated in 2002.

His recent film credits also include Hancock, Stop-Loss, P.S. I Love You,X-Men: The Last Stand, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Italian Job and the upcoming Fair Game. Powell began his career composing music for commercials and television at London’s Air-Edel in 1988. Later, he started his own jingle house and worked on many mixed-media art-installation works with artist Michael Petry, as well as the opera An Englishman, an Irishman and a Frenchman.

His score for Face/Off, starring Nicolas Cage and John Travolta, marked the beginning of a prolific film-composing career.