Simon McBurney Biography

Fast Facts

• Was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to Drama in the 2005 New Year Honours
• Studied English at Cambridge University, but trained as an actor at the Footlights Theatre Club
• His family would entertain themselves by acting out plays, and by the age of 17 he won an award for acting, which made him realize it was what he ought to do with his life
• Works with contemporary subject matter, including the mathematics that led to the development of string theory and urban anomie
• Was one of the founders of the theater company Complicite, which implemented a new visual and physical style in British theater
• After his father's death, he studied mime at the Jacques Lecoq mime school
• Directed the plays "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui" in 2002 and "All My Sons" in 2008
• Once gave a performance in which he and Fiona Gordon sat in lawn chairs for an hour and a half with nothing planned to test a teacher's theory that something interesting would happen even if two people were just sitting on stage doing nothing