Biography
Gareth Hugh Bowater Lewis was born to Charlotte and Watcyn Lewis in London on January 25, 1973, the youngest child and brother to three elder siblings Damian, William and Amanda. Growing up on Abbey Road, the inventive young Gareth and Damian would fill their childhood days with creative activities such as "solving crimes" along Abbey Road on their Grifter bikes. "We've been mucking about since we were kids," says Gareth, "pretending to be people we're not. From a very early age we adopted two personae that would go off and have adventures."1
Their theatrical roots running deep and sprouting early in life, the two youths also used to put on countless plays for their parents from behind the sofa at home, sometimes inviting neighborhood children to play roles. Exhibiting their significant imaginations and creativity at an early age, the two came up with plays such as one Damian recalls in a 2005 interview "about the life of a piece of chewing gum which kept travelling from one place to the next."2
Gareth was educated at Eton College and later Edinburgh University. He is married, having wed Kate Mallinson in or about 2001. He and Kate have three daughters named Malika, Clementine and Tirion. Professionally, one of his earliest positions was as third assistant director on a soap opera in Mexico in 1994, which led to positions as a runner and script reader on various productions in the UK. Since then, he has written for television in the UK, and has written and directed short films including the highly acclaimed The Tears Of A Clown which was shortlisted for a BAFTA Award. In addition to his creative projects, Gareth has also worked in a variety of jobs including contract cleaner, food deliverer, tele-sales agent, financial services salesperson and chicken sexer.
Gareth's feature-length directorial debut is The Baker, a film which he wrote several years earlier under the title Shakespeare's Cake while he worked in a pub. He and Damian worked on previous versions of this production at the Moonstone International Screen Labs of 2003 and 2004. On working with Damian on the current, feature-length production on location in Wales, Gareth says, "It is just like being kids again, doing what we have loved all our lives."3
Speaking on bringing this long-term dream project to full-length, cinematic-feature reality, Gareth offers some words of advice and encouragement to other emerging filmmakers facing similar challenges: "It's been a long journey to get to this stage, so to anybody who's thinking of giving up after a year ... don't! Keep going, it's worth it."4
Gareth is also a partner, along with Damian and some colleagues, in the film production company Picture Farm Ltd., which helped bring The Baker to fruition and also Gareth's short film Normal For Norfolk.
New and forthcoming projects for Gareth include creating and directing the 2009 Webseries entitled The Fantasist for Pure Grass Films and BBC, writing and directing the upcoming feature film entitled Father Figure to be produced by Picture Farm Ltd. (tentatively scheduled for cinematic release in 2011), and cowriting (with Phil Traill) a sitcom project entitled Life And Stuff which has been picked up for development by a major US television network.
Stay tuned as the youngest of the Lewis brothers takes the film world by storm and sets new standards for excellence in screenwriting and filmmaking. ...
1) Source: The Times, April 20, 2006.
2) Source: Telegraph, October 22, 2005.
3) Source: This Is Gwent, April 24, 2006.
4) Source: BBC / Film Network, April 2006.
Pictured above, top row: Charlotte (mother), Watcyn (father), Amanda (sister) and Damian (brother). Bottom row: Helen (sister-in-law) and Damian (brother), Gareth and Malika (daughter).
Pictured above: Damian (left) and Gareth (right) during their childhood.
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