Stephen Garrett
Executive Chairman
Stephen Garrett, founder and executive chairman of Character 7, has a track record of making high-end dramas that resonate with the expanding global audience.
Character 7’s first venture, THE NIGHT MANAGER, was produced in association with The Ink Factory for AMC and the BBC. The limited series garnered rave reviews and audience responses, receiving 12 Emmy® nominations, including Outstanding Limited Series, and winning 2 Emmy® awards for director Susanne Bier and composer Victor Reyes. In addition, the HFPA honoured Tom Hiddleston, Olivia Coleman and Hugh Laurie, who won Golden Globes® for their performances in the series.
Garrett and Character 7 have followed the success of THE NIGHT MANAGER with two current high-profile series: THE ROOK, a supernatural spy series, in partnership with Lionsgate and Starz, and most recently HBO’s limited series, THE UNDOING, which reunited Garrett with Bier, who directed the series. It was written by David E. Kelly and stars Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant and Donald Sutherland. THE UNDOING 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.
Currently in post production is a new eight-part thriller for Disney+. Garrett bought the rights to a book called “Culprits: The Heist Was Just the Beginning” and invited J Blakeson to write and direct a 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 fortieth 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 2023.
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.