Jez Butterworth made his feature film directorial debut with the acclaimed gangster film Mojo (1997), a witty, in-your-face yarn about greed and amorality in the drug underworld. Starring Ian Hart, Ewen Bremner, Aiden Gillen, Andy Serkis and Harold Pinter, the film was based on his wildly successful stage play of the same name. The play, which opened at the Royal Court Theatre in 1995, made Butterworth the first writer to debut on the main stage at the Royal Court since "Look Back in Anger"'s John Osborne. "Mojo" won five major theatre awards, including the Olivier and the Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright Award.
Butterworth's fourth play for the Royal Court was the comedy "Jerusalem", which premiered in July 2009 to outstanding reviews, later opening on Broadway and then returning to London in the West End's Apollo Theatre. In the same year he wrote and produced Fair Game starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn.
He has also won an additional Evening Standard Award, and a Critics' Circle, Writers' Guild, and George Devine Award. In 2007, he received The E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His credits also include Edge of Tomorrow (2014) starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt; Get on Up (2014) a chronicle of James Brown's rise from extreme poverty to become one of the most influential musicians in history; and Black Mass (2015), starring Johnny Depp.
Sony Pictures Entertainment
