In an extraordinary career on stage and screen, the director has always pushed boundaries – and is now making his debut as a screenwriter. He answers questions from famous fans and Observer readers
, the 1998 play he staged at the Donmar Warehouse, with Nicole Kidman in the lead, which made headlines around the world and kick-started a revival in British theatre. There are photos, with gushing dedications, from many of the actors he has worked with.
“Hilary is based on my mother in one key area, which is her fight with mental illness,” he says. “But she’s not my mother: my mother didn’t grow up on the south coast; Hilary, the character, doesn’t have any children. So I wanted to pull myself out of it.
Mendes had a somewhat peripatetic childhood: born in Reading, moved to Manchester, then Primrose Hill and finally Woodstock, outside Oxford. His parents separated in the 1970s, but his father, a Portuguese-Trinidadian English professor, would come back into his life when his mother was struggling with her mental health.
Alongside the movies, Mendes remains a powerhouse in theatre. He made his name as artistic director at the Donmar Warehouse in the 1990s, but even as the offers from Hollywood rolled in, he would always return to stage productions. So it was, after two Bond films, Mendes directed
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