Stewart Alexander

Park Bench Pictures
Actor, Director, Playwright, Producer and Screenwriter

London, England

Member Since:
September 2015

Last online:
> 2 weeks ago

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About Stewart

I have British and Canadian citizenship, though all my film and TV work to date has been in the UK. I moved to London shortly after graduating from McGill University where I'd made a number of short films on Super-8, and then embarked on a self-appointed apprenticeship assisting in the lighting, sound and editorial departments for numerous UK production companies. I also also wrote and directed a 10-minute film called, ‘The Leather Jacket,’ which was shot on 16mm, and edited, in a pre-digital age, on a Steenbeck.

After meeting Kerry Skinner while studying to be an actor, I wrote the stage-play ‘Body Checks,’ a romantic comedy set within an ice hockey team in Romford, Essex. We co-produced the play to considerable critical acclaim, with Fiona Mountford hailing it in the Evening Standard as, “the play the London stage has long been awaiting… in Stewart Alexander’s surprisingly touching romance.” Adding action-packed game sequences that couldn’t be included on stage, we have now adapted it into a screenplay, which the Script Factory describes as having, “enormous commercial potential.”

In April 2012, Kerry and I co-produced and co-directed the micro-budget feature film ‘Common People’. The film premiered at the Sedona International Film Festival where it won the Independent Spirit Award. It also won the Excellence Award at the Rincon International Film Festival in Puerto Rico, the Indie Spirit Award and a Best Actor Award for Sam Kelly at the ReelHeART International Film Festival in Toronto and it was nominated for the St Louis Film Critics’ Award for Best Narrative Feature at The St. Louis International Film Festival.

‘Common People’ had its British Premiere at the Clapham Picturehouse in South London. It was supposed to be a one-off screening, but as ticket sales soared and word of mouth spread it's sell-out run ended up lasting for 9 weeks. This led the Picturehouse chain to take the unprecedented step of offering to screen the film in 17 cinemas nationwide as part of their prestigious ‘Discover Tuesdays’ programme on June 10th, 2014. It was the first film to be included in the programme without a distributor attached.

The extended run made ‘Common People’ eligible for British Academy Awards, and although in the end the film wasn’t nominated in any categories, on the night before the 2014 ceremony, BAFTA host Stephen Fry tweeted this recommendation to his 9 million twitter followers:

“COMMON PEOPLE is a rare gem, the kind that makes you thrilled to have discovered it. With no real expectations I started to watch this wonderful film, expecting a gentle reflective hour and a half - but COMMON PEOPLE is so much more than that. With beautiful performances and a quiet firmness it pushes you to an understanding of human motive and love that is intensely moving and highly rewarding. I recommend this so highly.”

As an actor I have extensive experience in every medium.