Sacha Gervasi

Alexander "Sacha" Gervasi is a British journalist, screenwriter and Independent Spirit Award and Emmy Award winning director.

Early Life
Born in London in 1966, Gervasi was educated at Westminster School, and then read modern history at King's College London. As a teenager in 1981, Gervasi befriended Canadian metal band Anvil when they toured London and became a roadie for the band on three tours, eventually becoming close friends until a falling out in 1986. He was also an original drummer of alternative rock group Bush before they were famous and which at that time were called Diceheads.

Gervasi's first position was to work for the Poet Laureate of England, Ted Hughes at the Arvon Writing Foundation, founded by two young poets, John Fairfax and John Moat, in 1968. After completing his degree, he subsequently worked for John Calder of the Samuel Beckett archive helping to arrange a vast sale of Beckett’s personal papers at Sotheby’s in 1989, including Beckett’s own annotated version of Waiting for Godot which sold to Trinity College, Dublin.

Gervasi moved to Los Angeles in 1995 to attend the graduate screen-writing programme at UCLA Film School, where he twice won the BAFTA/LA scholarship. While in the programme, he supported himself by working as a journalist, writing for newspapers and magazines, including The Sunday Times, The Observer, and Punch.

Career
From 1999 to 2000, he was the voice of Jaguar cars on U.S. radio and television.

Gervasi got his film-writing start with The Big Tease, which he co-wrote with Craig Ferguson. He went on to pen The Terminal, made into a film in 2004 directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks. According to London’s The Daily Telegraph: "He is one of only two English screenwriters to have their scripts made into movies by Steven Spielberg. The other is Tom Stoppard [for Empire of the Sun]."

Other films for which he has written include Comrade Rockstar for Tom Hanks and How to Marry a Millionaire for Nicole Kidman. He wrote and executive produced Henry's Crime, starring Keanu Reeves, James Caan and Vera Farmiga. The film debuted at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2010.

He was appointed the Hunter/Zakin screenwriting chair at UCLA and taught there in spring 2009.

In 2009, Gervasi presented Steven Zaillian with the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award.

He is attached to write and direct a biopic of actor Hervé Villechaize, based on Gervasi's own interviews with the diminutive Frenchman, conducted only days before the actor committed suicide in 1993. The film will star Emmy Award and Golden Globe winning actor Peter Dinklage and is to be produced by Oscar winning Schindler's List scribe Steven Zaillian.

He is currently adapting the remake of Jo Nesbo's Norwegian thriller Headhunters for Summit Entertainment.

In 2012, Gervasi re-wrote and directed Hitchcock (formally known as Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho), starring Anthony Hopkins as Hitchcock, Helen Mirren as his wife, and Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh. Other cast members included Jessica Biel, Danny Huston, Michael Stuhlbarg, James D'Arcy and Michael Wincott.

The film is to be released by Fox Searchlight International.

Related Links
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