Alex Garland

Alexander Medawar Garland (born 26 May 1970) is an English novelist, screenwriter and director.

Alexander Medawar Garland was born in London on 26 May 1970, the son of psychologist Caroline (née Medawar) and political cartoonist Nicholas Garland.

He has a younger brother and two older paternal half-siblings.

He is the maternal grandson of writer Jean Medawar and biologist Peter Medawar, the latter of whom was born in Brazil to an English mother and Lebanese father.

Medawar was educated at University College School in Hampstead and later graduated from the University of Manchester with an Art History degree.

He has said that the script was influenced by 1970s zombie films and English science fiction like The Day of the Triffids.

Video games such as the Resident Evil series also served as an influence for 28 Days Later, with Garland crediting the first game for revitalizing the zombie genre.

Inspiration for the "Rage" virus came from real-world infections such as Ebola and filoviruses.

He rose to prominence with his novel The Beach (1996).

Garland's first novel, The Beach, was published in 1996.

Based upon his travels across Europe and Thailand, it tells the story of a young English backpacker who discovers an unspoiled seashore occupied by a community of like-minded backpackers.

The novel is noted for its references to drug culture, sequences of hallucinations, and unique depictions of excess and utopia.

The Beach was initially met with positive reviews, and with a spreading word of mouth response, the novel grew in popularity; it led some critics to regard Garland a key voice of Generation X.

He would later speak of his discomfort with the fame The Beach brought him.

Garland's The Tesseract (1998) is a non-linear narrative with several interwoven characters, set in Manila, Philippines.

The novel is characterized by a post-modernist narrative style and structure.

It explores several themes such as love and violence through each character's circumstance and context of surroundings as well as seemingly inconsequential actions and the repercussions of those actions on other characters.

The Tesseract did not enjoy the critical or commercial success of The Beach, but it too has a film adaptation.

Throughout his career and work, Garland has expressed his love of travel (particularly backpacking) and his love of Manila, much of which influenced his work.

The Beach has been translated into 25 different languages and sold close to 700,000 copies by the start of 1999.

It was developed into a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

He also wrote the script for Dredd, an adaptation of the Judge Dredd comic book series from 2000 AD.

He subsequently received praise for writing the Danny Boyle films 28 Days Later (2002) and Sunshine (2007), as well as Never Let Me Go (2010) and Dredd (2012).

In 2002, Garland wrote the screenplay for Danny Boyle's film 28 Days Later, starring Cillian Murphy.

In 2003, the novel was Ranked 103 in BBC's The Big Read poll.

He won a Best Screenplay honor at the 2004 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards for his script of the film.

In 2005, Garland wrote a screenplay for a film adaptation of Halo.

D. B. Weiss and Josh Olson rewrote this during 2006 for a 2008 release, although the film was later canceled.

In 2007, he wrote the screenplay for the film Sunshine, which was his second screenplay to be directed by Danny Boyle and to star Cillian Murphy.

Garland served as an executive producer on 28 Weeks Later, the sequel of 28 Days Later.

In video games, he co-wrote Enslaved: Odyssey to the West (2010) and served as a story supervisor on DmC: Devil May Cry (2013).

He wrote the screenplay for the 2010 film Never Let Me Go, based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Garland made his directorial debut when he wrote and directed the sci-fi thriller Ex Machina (2014).

The film earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and won him three British Independent Film Awards, including Best Screenplay, Best Director, and Best British Independent Film.

Garland made his directorial debut with Ex Machina, a 2014 feature film based on his own story and screenplay, starring Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander and Oscar Isaac.

The film won a Jury Prize at the 2015 Gerardmer Film Festival, and earned Garland a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

His second film, Annihilation (2018), an adaptation of the 2014 novel of the same name, was also a critical success.

This was followed by the horror thriller Men (2022) and action epic Civil War (2024), both produced by A24.

In 2018, Karl Urban, who played the eponymous role in the film, stated that it was Garland who deserved credit for also directing Dredd.

In television, Garland served as a writer, director and executive producer for the FX miniseries Devs (2020).