Stephen Garrett, founder and Executive Chairman of Character 7, has a long and distinguished track record for making award-winning, high-end dramas that resonate with audiences around the globe.   

Character 7’s first venture, THE NIGHT MANAGER, was produced in association with The Ink Factory for AMC and the BBC. The series garnered rave reviews and audience responses, receiving 12 Emmy® nominations, including Outstanding Limited Series, and winning an Emmy® award for director Susanne Bier. In addition, the HFPA honoured Tom Hiddleston, Olivia Colman and Hugh Laurie, who won Golden Globes® for their performances in the series. Season 2 is currently in production for Amazon and the BBC, with Tom Hiddleston and Olivia Colman returning to their first season roles. 

Garrett and Character 7 have followed the success of THE NIGHT MANAGER with three high-profile series: THE ROOK, a supernatural spy series made in partnership with Lionsgate and Starz; HBO series THE UNDOING, which reunited Garrett with Bier, who directed the thriller; and CULPRITS for Disney+.

THE UNDOING, written by David E. Kelly and starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant and Donald Sutherland, launched late in 2020 and became the most viewed show for the network in that year. It was also the first HBO show to grow its viewership every week over the course of the season. THE UNDOING then became the biggest U.S. show to launch on Sky in the UK, beating the record previously held by GAME OF THRONES. 

CULPRITS, an eight-part thriller for Disney+, began when Garrett bought the rights to the eponymous book and invited J Blakeson to write and direct the series inspired by it.  Starring Gemma Arterton, Eddie Izzard, and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, CULPRITS follows what happens three years after a heist, when the crew have gone their separate ways but suddenly find themselves being targeted by a killer who’s going after them one by one.

Prior to Character 7, Garrett served as Founder and Executive Chairman of Kudos, the UK’s leading independent producer of TV drama. With his business partner Jane Featherstone, Kudos’ TV drama arm galvanized British television with such popular and acclaimed series as HUSTLE, LIFE ON MARS and the BAFTA® award-winning SPOOKS. Garrett also led Kudos’ (then Shine’s) stand-alone filmmaking entity. Under this banner he was executive producer for a number of movies including the Simon Beaufoy-penned SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN, David Cronenberg’s EASTERN PROMISES and MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY, starring Frances McDormand and Amy Adams. 

Garrett and Featherstone sold Kudos to Elisabeth Murdoch’s Shine Group in 2006. 

Outside of production, Character 7 sponsors the Verity Bargate Award for new writing at London’s Soho Theatre. Now in its forty-third year, the competition has launched the careers of some of Britain’s best-known playwrights and screenwriters. Garrett is also on the Board of Scenario Two, a theatre company whose new work about the life and music of Luciano Pavarotti will premiere in 2026.

Garrett has written about film and television for a range of publications including The Financial Times, The Guardian and The Independent. In 2010, he was the News International Visiting Professor of Broadcast Media at Oxford University, giving a series of lectures about the intersection of creativity and commerce, and the future of storytelling.  

Prior to his career in production, Garrett studied jurisprudence at Oxford and counts his first break as a 6-year-old extra in a Milky Bar Kid commercial.