Michael Hirst (born 21 September 1952)[1] is an English screenwriter and producer. He is best known for his films Elizabeth (1998) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), as well as the Emmy Award-winning television series The Tudors (2007-2010) and Vikings (2013-2020).[2] Hirst owns Green Pavilion Entertainment, a production company he launched in December 2017.[3]
Hirst was originally going to be an academic, but decided to become a screenwriter after Nicolas Roeg read one of his short stories and asked Hirst to write screenplays for him.[1]
Career
Hirst was head writer, creator, and executive producer of the Showtime television drama series The Tudors which aired from 2007 to 2010. It tells the story of King Henry VIII and his Six Wives as well as his court and the dilemmas throughout his kingdom during his reign.
Hirst is one of the co-writers on the screenplay for the James Dalessandro book, 1906. The story follows a young man who discovers a series of secrets and lies that left San Francisco highly vulnerable to the fires that engulfed it in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake. Brad Bird was the director; it was released in 2012.
Hirst produced The Borgias television series for Showtime. The Borgias tells the story of the notorious Borgia family. It stars Jeremy Irons as Pope Alexander VI, his first series-regular role. The show was created by Neil Jordan, with filming beginning in the summer of 2010 and ran for three seasons.[5]
In 2019, Hirst began working with writer Jeb Stuart on the sequel to Vikings called Vikings: Valhalla which is set approximately 100 years after the end of Vikings[8] which was released on Netflix in 2022.[9]
In 2021, Billy the Kid was bought by Epix; Hirst wrote and was executive producer for the series. It premiered in 2022.[10]
Personal life
His daughters Maude Hirst and Georgia Hirst are both actors. They have made appearances on his shows, the former on The Tudors and both on Vikings.
