About The Filmmakers

One of Britain's most in-demand theater and opera directors, PHYLLIDA LLOYD (Directed by) staged the smash-hit musical Mamma Mia!, which, after almost a decade, continues to play to sold-out houses on Broadway, in London's West End and around the world.

Lloyd has directed notable productions of plays at leading theaters, including The Duchess of Malfi, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Pericles, The Way of the World, What the Butler Saw (Royal National Theatre), The Virtuoso, Artists and Admirers (Royal Shakespeare Company), Six Degrees of Separation, Hysteria, Wild East (Royal Court), The Threepenny Opera, Boston Marriage, Mary Stuart (Donmar Warehouse), The Winter's Tale, Death and the King's Horseman, Medea, The School for Scandal (Royal Exchange Theatre Company, Manchester), The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare's Globe Theatre), The Comedy of Errors, A Streetcar Named Desire, Dona Rosita the Spinster and Oliver Twist (Bristol Old Vic).

For Opera North, she directed productions of L'Etoile, La Bohème, Medea, Carmen, Albert Herring, Peter Grimes (winner of the South Bank Opera Award and the Royal Philharmonic Society Award and a nominee for the Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production) and Gloriana, which she filmed for BBC television, and for which she won an International Emmy.

Other opera work includes Macbeth (Opéra National de Paris and Royal Opera House, London), The Carmelites, Verdi's Requiem and Wagner's Ring Cycle (English National Opera, Welsh National Opera) and The Handmaid's Tale (The Royal Danish Opera, English National Opera, Canadian Opera).

Her production of Schiller's Mary Stuart with Janet McTeer opens on Broadway in 2009.

CATHERINE JOHNSON (Screenplay by) is the award-winning British writer of the global smash Mamma Mia!, who has adapted the show for the screen. She is currently working on a commission for The National Theatre.

Johnson's writing career began in 1987 when her first play, Rag Doll, won the inaugural Bristol Old Vic/HTV Playwrighting Award. Her next play, Boys Mean Business, won her the Pearson Writer in Residency at The Bush Theatre, London, and she subsequently won the Pearson Award for Best New Play for Dead Sheep.

For the next decade, Johnson continued to work extensively in theater with plays such as Too Much Too Young (Bristol Old Vic and London Bubble) and Shang-A-Lang (The Bush Theatre and national tour), as well as writing the television film Sin Bin, creating the series Love in the 21st Century for Channel 4 and working on the long-running dramas Casualty and Love Hurts.

In 1997, producer Judy Craymer approached Johnson to create a new musical from the existing songs of ABBA. Mamma Mia! opened in the West End in April 1999 and has kept Johnson busy ever since, overseeing translations for the several foreign productions and revamping the text for North America and Australia.

Mamma Mia! was nominated for the Olivier Awards in London, followed by several Tony nominations on Broadway, including Best Book of a Musical.

Her most recent successes have been the stage play Little Baby Nothing (The Bush Theatre) and a book and lyrics for Through the Wire, a musical for young people (National Theatre Connections, Myrtle Theatre).

Johnson is deeply committed to encouraging new writing through her position as a patron of Myrtle Theatre (Bristol) and The Bush Theatre. She is also a panelist for the Pearson's new writing bursaries and now sponsors their Best Play Award.

Johnson has two children, Huw and Myfi, and lives in Bristol with her husband, Michael.

One of the leading theatrical producers in the world today, JUDY CRAYMER (Produced by) is the global producer of Mamma Mia!, the smash-hit stage musical, which has been seen nightly by more than 30 million people worldwide and has grossed more than $2 billion at the box office.

Craymer formed Littlestar Services in 1997 to produce Mamma Mia! with ABBA's Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, with whom she had previously collaborated as executive producer for the London production of the musical Chess. The original production of Mamma Mia! opened in London's West End two years later, and the Broadway company followed in 2001. Both productions, as well as the international companies, continue to play to packed houses.

Also active in the worlds of film and television, Craymer was a producer for Tiger Aspect Productions and Primetime Television in the late 1980s. Feature films she worked on include Michael Radford's White Mischief and John Schlesinger's Madame Sousatzka.

Recently, Craymer was executive producer of two popular ABBA television documentaries, ABBA: The Winner Takes It All and ABBA: Super Troupers: A Celebratory Film From Waterloo to MAMMA MIA!, which have been broadcast

worldwide and are DVD best sellers. She is also the co-author of the book Mamma Mia! How Can I Resist You?: The Inside Story of Mamma Mia! and the Songs of ABBA.

Upon graduating from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Craymer spent four years as a stage manager on various productions, including working as one of the original stage managers on Cats in the West End.

In recognition for her remarkable contribution to the performing arts and music, Craymer was presented with The Woman of the Year Award in 2002. She has been listed in the top 10 of both Management Today's "Top Entrepreneur in Britain," and by Real Business in its "Top 50 Women of 2005." In early 2007, Forbes listed Craymer as one of the "Top 10 Tastemakers in the Performing Arts." For the past two years, Littlestar Services has been featured in The Sunday Times' Fast Track ranking of "Britain's Fastest Growing Companies."

Judy Craymer was recently made a fellow of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and in the Queen's birthday honors list of 2007, she was honored with an MBE for her contribution to the music industry.

Producing credits for GARY GOETZMAN (Produced by) include Charlie Wilson's War; The Polar Express; My Big Fat Greek Wedding; The Ant Bully; Beloved; That Thing You Do!; The Silence of the Lambs (winner of five Academy Awards®, including Best Picture); Philadelphia; Devil in a Blue Dress; Miami Blues; Starter for 10; Modern Girls; Amos & Andrew; Storefront Hitchcock; the IMAX film Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D; the acclaimed HBO miniseries John Adams, starring Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney; the twice Golden Globe-nominated television series Big Love; and the Emmy-and Golden Globe-winning miniseries Band of Brothers.

He also produced Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense; Neil Young: Heart of Gold; Neil Young's long-form video The Complex Sessions; and music videos for Bruce Springsteen, Suzanne Vega, David Byrne, as well as Jane Child's "Don't Wanna Fall in Love," which he also directed.

Goetzman is currently producing Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze's feature adaptation of Maurice Sendak's beloved book; The Great Buck Howard, starring John Malkovich and Colin Hanks; City of Ember, starring Bill Murray and Saoirse Ronan; and the 10-part HBO miniseries The Pacific.

In 1998, Goetzman and Tom Hanks teamed up to form Playtone, a film, television and music producing company.

BENNY ANDERSSON (Executive Producer/Music and Lyrics by): Composer. Professor. Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. Leader of the 16-piece Benny Andersson's Orchestra. Grandfather of five.

BJÖRN ULVAEUS (Executive Producer/Music and Lyrics by) was born in 1945 in Gothenburg on the west coast of Sweden. After a successful local career in Sweden with a folk group in the mid 1960s, he started his collaboration with Benny Andersson. They then went on to form ABBA with Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad.

Even during the ABBA years, the idea of writing a musical seemed appealing and, in 1981, Ulvaeus and Andersson met Tim Rice and co-wrote Chess with him, which opened in the West End in 1986.

In 1995, Ulvaeus and Andersson opened a new musical called Kristina från Duvemåla, which played for three years in Sweden.

In February 2002, the Swedish version of Chess opened in Stockholm.

Actor/Producer RITA WILSON (Executive Producer) first donned her producer's cap for the record-breaking box-office hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Wilson was the driving force behind bringing Nia Vardalos' semiautobiographical story to the screen with Vardalos as the lead. Wilson was honored with the Visionary Award from the Producers Guild of America, and the film won the People's Choice Award for Favorite Comedy, as well as receiving Golden Globe Award and Oscar® nominations. Wilson recently reteamed with Nia Vardalos as executive producer for the 2008 film My Life in Ruins.

As an actor, Wilson recently completed Old Dogs with John Travolta and Robin Williams, and starred in Beautiful Ohio with William Hurt. Some of her other film credits include The Chumscrubber, with Ralph Fiennes; Raise Your Voice, with Hilary Duff; Auto Focus, with Greg Kinnear; The Story of Us, with Michelle Pfeiffer and Bruce Willis; Runaway Bride, with Richard Gere; Gus Van Sant's Psycho; and Nora Ephron's Mixed Nuts, with Steve Martin and Sleepless in Seattle, in which she captured the hearts of film audiences everywhere with her now classic crying scene.

On stage, Wilson recently starred in the world premiere of Lisa Loomer's Distracted, directed by Leonard Foglia at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. She also starred in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Dinner With Friends in Los Angeles and Boston, directed by Dan Sullivan. In 2006, she made a personal dream come true and made her Broadway debut as Roxie Hart in Chicago, the musical. Wilson works with the Shakespeare Festival/LA, a charity that provides free Shakespeare to the citizens of Los Angeles, as well as providing educational programs for youths in the community.

On television, Wilson has foiled Larry David in "The Doll" episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, has been girlfriend and mother to Kelsey Grammer's Frasier and co-starred as Susan Borman in HBO's Emmy Award-winning miniseries From the Earth to the Moon. Wilson has The Brady Bunch to thank for her first professional acting job.

In 2007, Wilson made her directorial debut for Glamour magazine's "Reel Moments." The Trap, starring Jeanne Tripplehorn and Channing Tatum, also includes the song "Lessons Learned" by Grammy Award-winning songwriter Diane Warren, and is performed by Wilson.

Wilson has been a contributing editor to Harper's Bazaar since 2006 and has also written for O, The Oprah magazine, where readers have followed her thoughts on varying subjects from fashion to family.

TOM HANKS (Executive Producer) holds the distinction of being the first actor in 50 years to be awarded back-to-back Best Actor Academy Awards®: in 1994 as the AIDS-stricken lawyer in Philadelphia and the following year in Forrest Gump. He also won Golden Globes for both of these performances, along with his work in Big and Cast Away.

Born and raised in Oakland, California, Hanks became interested in acting during high school. He attended Chabot College in Hayward, California, and the California State University in Sacramento. At the invitation of artistic director Vincent Dowling, he made his professional debut portraying Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew at the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Cleveland, Ohio. He performed in that company for three seasons.

Moving to New York City in 1978, Hanks performed with the Riverside Shakespeare Company until getting a big break when he was teamed with Peter Scolari in the ABC television comedy series Bosom Buddies. This led to starring roles in Ron Howard's Splash, Bachelor Party, Volunteers, The Money Pit and Nothing in Common. In 1988, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association recognized his performances in both Big and Punchline, bestowing on Hanks their Best Actor Award.

Roles followed in films such as A League of Their Own and Sleepless in Seattle.

In 1996, Hanks made his feature film writing and directing debut with That Thing You Do! The film's title song not only reached the top 10 in many contemporary music charts but was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Original Song.

After reteaming with Ron Howard in Apollo 13, Hanks served as an executive producer, writer, director and actor for HBO's From the Earth to the Moon-an Emmywinning 12-hour dramatic film anthology that explored the entire Apollo space program.

In 1998, Hanks starred in Steven Spielberg's war drama Saving Private Ryan, for which he received his fourth Oscar® nomination. The following year he starred in The Green Mile, which was written and directed by Frank Darabont and is based on the six-part serialized novel by Stephen King.

In 2000, Hanks reunited with director Robert Zemeckis and screenwriter William Broyles, Jr. in Cast Away, for which he received yet another Oscar® nomination.

In 2000, he served again with Steven Spielberg as executive producer, writer and director for another epic HBO miniseries, Band of Brothers, based on Stephen Ambrose's book. The miniseries aired in the fall of 2001 to wide-scale critical acclaim, leading to an Emmy Award and Golden Globe for Best Miniseries in 2002.

In 2002, Hanks starred in Road to Perdition, opposite Paul Newman and Jude Law under Sam Mendes' direction. It was followed by Spielberg's stylish caper, Catch Me If You Can, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, which was based on the true-life exploits of international confidence man Frank Abagnale, Jr.

Hanks teamed for a third time with Spielberg in The Terminal, opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones and followed it with the Coen brothers' dark comedy, The Ladykillers. In November 2004, Hanks starred in the film adaptation of the Caldecott Medal-winning children's book "The Polar Express" by Chris Van Allsburg, which reunited him once again with director Robert Zemeckis.

In 2006, Hanks was seen playing Robert Langdon in the film adaptation of Dan Brown's novel "The Da Vinci Code," helmed by Ron Howard and also starring Audrey Tautou, Paul Bettany, Sir Ian McKellen and Jean Reno.

In 2007, Hanks starred opposite Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman in Mike Nichols' Charlie Wilson's War. Upcoming films include The Great Buck Howard, starring John Malkovich and Colin Hanks.

Next up, Hanks will reteam with Ron Howard to reprise his role as Harvard Symbologist Robert Langdon in the film adaptation of Dan Brown's "Angels & Demons."

MARK HUFFAM (Executive Producer) has been active in the film industry since 1983 and has been working as a producer for the last 10 years. Huffam's first major producing credit was earned on Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, starring Tom Hanks, which went on to win five Oscars® at the 1999 Academy Awards®. In recognition of his own contribution to the film, Huffam shared a Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Motion Picture that year.

In 2000, Huffam co-produced the highly acclaimed Quills, starring Geoffrey Rush and Kate Winslet, which was nominated for three Oscars® and four BAFTA Awards. After this, in 2001, he produced Captain Corelli's Mandolin for Working Title Films. Directed by John Madden, it starred Nicolas Cage and Penelope Cruz.

In 2002, Huffam teamed up with Scott Rudin to produce The Hours, directed by Stephen Daldry and starring Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep. The film received nine Academy Award® nominations that year and Kidman went on to win the Best Actress award for her role as Virginia Woolf.

Huffam produced the highly successful Johnny English in 2003-again for Working Title. The film, starring Rowan Atkinson, grossed $147 million at the box office worldwide and picked up a number of nominations, including Best Film (British Comedy Awards 2003) and Best British Film (Empire Awards 2004). He again joined forces with Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner to produce the film version of the popular '60s television series Thunderbirds, in 2004.

Also in 2004, and with Stephen Daldry on board as executive producer, Huffam produced Mickybo and Me, a project he developed with writer/director Terry Loane. Filmed in Northern Ireland and starring Julie Walters, it won awards and acclaim at the Irish Film and Television Awards in 2005 and at festivals around the world.

In 2005 and 2006, Huffam was involved in the highly successful GOAL! series, set in the world of international soccer, producing the first two films of the trilogy for Milkshake Films and Buena Vista Pictures.

HARIS ZAMBARLOUKOS, BSC (Director of Photography) shot Kenneth Branagh's Sleuth, starring Michael Caine and Jude Law, and has wrapped Richard Eyre's latest film The Other Man, starring Liam Neeson, Laura Linney and Antonio Banderas, set for a 2008 release. Prior to that, his recent credits include Gillian Armstrong's Death Defying Acts, starring Guy Pearce and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Roger Michell's Venus, starring Peter O'Toole, which earned him the honor as one of Variety's list of 10 to Watch: Cinematographers in 2006. He also worked on Enduring Love, starring Daniel Craig and Samantha Morton, for which he received a nomination for Best Technical Achievement at the British Independent Film Awards, and for which the film was LA Weekly's film editor's choice for Best Cinematography in 2004.

Other feature film credits as director of photography include Opa!, The Best Man, Spivs, Oh Marbella!, Mr In-Between and Camera Obscura. He also served as second unit director of photography on Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins.

MARIA DJURKOVIC's (Production Designer) acclaimed career as a production designer spans 15 years, starting out in theater, opera and ballet productions at major U.K. theaters (Oxford Playhouse, Royal Opera House), and later designing sets for popular television dramas, including Spender, Inspector Morse and In Your Dreams.

Her feature film credits include Cassandra's Dream and Scoop, both for director Woody Allen; Mira Nair's Vanity Fair; Christine Jeffs' Sylvia; The Hours and Billy Elliot, both for director Stephen Daldry, receiving nominations from the Art Directors Guild for Excellence in Production Design for both films; Fanny and Elvis; Peter Howitt's Sliding Doors; Brian Gilbert's Wilde, for which she won the Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Technical/Artistic Achievement in 1998; and Benjamin Ross' The Young Poisoner's Handbook.

As set dresser, she worked on Michael Caton-Jones' Scandal and Clive Donner's Stealing Heaven.

LESLEY WALKER's (Editor) career as a film editor spans 50 years. She recently completed work on Sir Richard Attenborough's Closing the Ring, marking her fourth collaboration with the director. Previously, they worked together on In Love and War, Shadowlands and Cry Freedom, for which she received a BAFTA nomination. She has also worked extensively with director Terry Gilliam on films including Tideland, The Brothers Grimm, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Fisher King.

Walker began her career working as an assistant film editor in the 1960s on films such as Funeral in Berlin, The Last Safari and The Lion in Winter. Her first job as editor was on Joseph Strick's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in 1977, which she followed with Derek Jarman's The Tempest and Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa, for which she received her first BAFTA nomination. Subsequent credits include Lewis Gilbert's Shirley Valentine, Stephen Gyllenhaal's Waterland, Luis Mandoki's Born Yesterday, Tim Sullivan's Jack & Sarah, Douglas McGrath's Emma and Nicholas Nickleby, and Mike Leigh's All or Nothing.

ANN ROTH (Costume Designer) is a prolific Academy Award®-winning costume designer for films and theater of near-legendary status.

She won an Oscar® for The English Patient, and was nominated for The Hours, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Places in the Heart. Her more than 100 screen credits include Evening, Margot at the Wedding, The Good Shepherd, Freedomland, Closer, Cold Mountain, Primary Colors, The Birdcage, Wolf, Sabrina, The Mambo Kings, Postcards From the Edge, The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Heartburn, Jagged Edge, Silkwood, Working Girl, Nine to Five, Hair, Coming Home, The Goodbye Girl, The Day of the Locust (for which she won a BAFTA Award for Best Costume Design), Klute and Midnight Cowboy. She recently finished work on the screen adaptation of Doubt, and is currently designing costumes for Stephen Daldry's The Reader, starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes.

Her dozens of stage credits include The Odd Couple, The Star-Spangled Girl, Purlie, Seesaw, They're Playing Our Song, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Biloxi Blues and Butley.

Roth is also a two-time Emmy Award nominee for the miniseries Roanoak (1986) and Angels in America (2003).

In 2000, the Theatre Development Fund honored Roth with the Irene Sharaff Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2003, she received a Hollywood Film Award at the Hollywood Film Festival for Outstanding Achievement in Costume Design. The same year, the Costume Designers Guild recognized her extraordinary body of work with a Career Achievement Award.

ANTHONY VAN LAAST (Choreographer) trained at the London Contemporary Dance School, later joining the company as both performer and choreographer.

His theater credits include Mamma Mia! (Worldwide; Dora Mavor Moore Award and Helpman Award nomination), Bombay Dreams (London and Broadway; Tony Award nomination), Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Worldwide; Laurence Olivier Award nomination, Drama-Logue Award); Jesus Christ Superstar

(U.K. and Broadway); Song & Dance (Worldwide; Green Room Award); Candide (London; Laurence Olivier Award for Best Musical); Hair (London; Laurence Olivier Award nomination); and The Siegfried and Roy Show (Las Vegas).

Van Laast's film credits include The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, Who Dares Wins, Princess Caraboo, Never Say Never Again, Excalibur, Hope and Glory, Jesus Christ Superstar (which won an Emmy at the International Emmy Awards for Performing Arts in the U.K.) and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (which won a Silver Rose Award at the Rose d'Or Light Entertainment Festival).

Van Laast has also choreographed for concerts including: Elaine Paige, Sarah Brightman, Wayne Sleep, Kate Bush, Barry Humphries (for Dame Edna), Cleo Laine and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 50th birthday concert (at Royal Albert Hall).

BECKY BENTHAM (Music Supervisor) entered the music industry 20 years ago working at the Performing Rights Society before moving into audio postproduction at Goldcrest Films and Roger Cherrills in Soho. Bentham then travelled to Australia, where she managed postproduction audio facilities in Sydney.

On her return to the U.K. in 1992, Bentham established herself as a film music supervisor and composer agent at Air-Edel Associates until 2002, when she and her business partner, Karen Elliot, set up Hothouse Music Ltd., which burst onto the scene and secured its position as Europe's leading composer agency and music supervision company.

Bentham's extensive list of composer clients includes Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard, Harry Gregson-Williams, Angelo Badalementi and Gabriel Yared. After 15 years of working closely with composers, directors and producers, handling all aspects of music production for feature films, Bentham's knowledge of this industry is second to none.

Bentham's reputation as a first-rate music supervisor is established not only in the U.K. but also in the U.S., where clients include Universal Pictures, Warner Bros., DreamWorks, 20th Century Fox, MGM, Sony Pictures, The Weinstein Company and HBO.

Responsibilities on projects include: budget control, composer selection, contract negotiations, track research, track clearances, selection of music team (musicians, studios, orchestrators, conductors, programmers, copyists, music editors, engineers, etc.), session attendance, securing soundtrack deals-handling all aspects of music supervision from the prerecording stage through scoring to the final delivery of music.

Bentham has experience in score recording throughout Europe and a wealth of experience in source music clearances, using her broad knowledge of popular and classical music to work with directors and producers in choosing appropriate material, both artistically and financially.

Projects that illustrate her expertise: the upcoming film The Edge of Love; La Vie en Rose, for which she won a Czech Lion Award earlier this year; John Madden's Shakespeare in Love; Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven; and Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

MARTIN LOWE's (Musical Director) theater credits as music director include Caroline, or Change (London; Evening Standard and Laurence Olivier awards for Best New Musical), The Wolves in the Walls (National Theatre of Scotland; TMA Award 2006), Once in a Lifetime and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (National), Jerry Springer: The Opera (National; Cambridge BAC and Edinburgh Assembly Rooms; Olivier, Evening Standard, Critics' Circle and Whatsonstage.com Theatergoer's Choice awards for Best Musical), Mamma Mia! (Prince Edward, Tokyo, Seoul, Stockholm, international tour), The Full Monty (Prince of Wales; Evening Standard Best New Musical Award), Is There Life After High School? (Bridewell), Once on This Island (Royalty; Olivier Award for Best New Musical), Cats (New London Theatre, U.K. tour), Pal Joey and Last Train From Berlin (Minerva), Maddie (Salisbury Playhouse), Definitely Doris (Kings Head) and Closer Than Ever (Jermyn Street).

Lowe's theater credits as musical associate include Les Misérables (Palace), Moby Dick (Piccadilly), Which Witch (Piccadilly), Nine (Royal Festival Hall) and Just So (Tricycle). Other credits include workshop productions of Taboo, We Will Rock You and Desperately Seeking Susan.

Lowe's compositions include The Misanthrope (Minerva), The Secret Rapture (Minerva), The Blue Room (Minerva, Haymarket), Lettice and Lovage (Theatre Royal Bath, U.K. tour), Hysteria (Minerva), Into Exile (BBC Radio 4), Dear Exile (BBC Radio 4), The Ten Commandments and The Challenge (Mercury Workshop).

His recordings include Jerry Springer: The Opera, Mamma Mia!, The Challenge, Which Witch, Moby Dick, Sisters and It's Oh So Issy.

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