Mike Leigh | Writer and Filmmaker | $20 Million

Mike Leigh’s career in theatre is certainly an impressive one. He was the resident assistant director for Midlands Art Centre in 1965, pioneering the idea that writing and rehearsing can be interwoven as part of the same process. By 1966, he moved on to the Royal Shakespeare Company and worked as assistant director for productions of Macbeth and The Taming of the Shrew.

His work for film and TV followed soon after. His most notable work to date is arguably 1993’s dark-comedy feature Naked, which won him the Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival. Other films he has taken credit for since then include Mr. Turner, Life is Sweet, All or Nothing, Another Year, and Peterloo. Besides gaining fame as a well-renowned filmmaker, fans and critics also cite Leigh as the person who brought more than a few actors, including Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, Liz Smith, and Jane Horrocks, into celebrity stardom.