Meet theTeam
Andy Serkis
FOUNDER
Andy Serkis is an award-winning actor who has earned acclaim from both critics and audiences for his work in a range of memorable roles. He gained legions of fans around the globe for his performance as Gollum in the Academy Award -winning The Lord of the Rings trilogy, directed by Peter Jackson. Serkis won an Empire Award for his role, in addition to sharing in several Outstanding Ensemble Cast Awards, including a Screen Actors Guild Award. He reunited with Jackson in the director’s epic retelling of King Kong, taking performance capture to another level as the title character of Kong.
In February of 2020, Serkis was honoured by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) at the 73rd EE British Academy Film Awards with one the organisation’s highest honour, the Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Award. Most recently, Serkis helmed Venom: Let There Be Carnage for Marvel and Sony Pictures which set US box-office records with a 90 million dollar opening weekend. His portrayal of ‘Caesar’ in the recent Planet of the Apes trilogy earned him numerous accolades from critics, including a Critics Choice Award nomination. Other recent credits include roles in Black Panther, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Wars: The Last Jedi as well as directing the feature films Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle and Breathe. He is currently in production on the feature instalment of the acclaimed crime series Luther, starring alongside Idris Elba and Cynthia Erivo for Netflix and the BBC. Serkis will next be seen on the big-screen in The Batman (March 2022) portraying Alfred Pennyworth.
Serkis is also the co-founder of The Imaginarium, a multi-platform production company linked to a performance capture studio focusing on next-generation storytelling. The Imaginarium is in pre-production on Animal Farm, which Serkis will direct.
Jonathan Cavendish
FOUNDER
Alongside actor/director Andy Serkis, Jonathan founded The Imaginarium. The Imaginarium is a multi- platform production company, linked to a performance capture studio.
Its first two movies, which Jonathan produced, came out in October 2017, BREATHE directed by Andy Serkis and starring Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy and The Ritual, directed by David Bruckner and starring Rafe Spall. TV productions include Fungus the Bogeyman for Sky and their most recent show Death and Nightingales, directed by Allan Cubitt, produced by Jonathan and starring Jamie Dornan and Matthew Rhys, broadcast on BBC2 in 2018. He also produced Andy Serkis’ MOWGLI for Warner Brothers and Netflix, starring Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Andy Serkis and Benedict Cumberbatch which was released by Netflix in December 2018.
Jonathan is currently in post-production on Taika Waititi’s NEXT GOAL WINS for Fox Searchlight, starring Michael Fassbender and Elizabeth Moss, he produced horror film NO ONE GETS OUT ALIVE for Netflix, due to air late September, 2021, and is an Executive Producer on the sequel to VENOM, starring Tom Hardy and directed by Andy Serkis, set for release in October, 2021. Television series Half Bad is in production to air on Netflix in Spring 2022.
Dr Margaret Casely-Hayford CBE
CEO
Margaret Casely-Hayford is Chancellor of Coventry University and Chair of Shakespeare’s Globe. She’s also a non executive, elected director on the Board of the Co-op Group.
She was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Honours list, for services to charity and for promoting diversity, in 2018, upon ending her term as trustee and Chair of international development Charity ActionAid UK., and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of her former University college: Somerville, Oxford. In 2021 she was elected a Bencher of Gray’s Inn.
She’s a trustee of the Radcliffe Trust, which supports the development of skills in classical music and traditional arts and crafts.
She chaired a diversity review of the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards for CILIP (the Libraries Association).
She was Director of Legal Services and Company Secretary for the John Lewis Partnership for nine years. Before that she worked for twenty years with City law firm Dentons
Her portfolio includes advising young entrepreneurs, and supporting and advising organisations on governance and advising those, in particular women and BAME or LGTBQ+ people, who wish to embark upon board careers. She is passionate about establishing diversity on boards and is an ambassador of Board Apprentice. Her passion for education sees her also as a Patron of the award-winning Ultra Education, an enterprise which provides teaching of entrepreneurial skills to primary school children; and as Patron of the John Staples Society a body created to develop social mobility by providing opportunities and access.across the Leathersellers’ Federation of Schools. She is a co-founder of the Gallery of Living History.
Jude Tyrrell
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Following a career in TV production, in 1997 Jude moved to the Art world and joined Damien Hirst’s company, Science Ltd, as part of the senior management team overseeing the growth of the company over the next two decades. She produced numerous high profile exhibitions, including the 2014 Hirst Tate retrospective and his monumental 2017 Venice exhibition. She managed his media profile and Communications, the launch of Hirst’s RIBA award winning Newport Street Gallery and restaurant and was also Executive Producer on four films commissioned about Hirst.
Jude has acted as a Trustee of Damien Hirst’s charity VICTIM and was appointed as a Director and Trustee of Chickenshed Theatre Company. Since 2017 she has been an active fundraiser and key supporter of The Avenues Youth Project in North Westminster, recently awarded the Gold Level London Youth Quality Mark.
She is a founder member of the Women’s Equality Party.