Daldry was born in Dorset, the son of singer Cherry (née Thompson) and bank manager Patrick Daldry. The family moved to Taunton, Somerset, where his father died of cancer when Daldry was aged 14.

Daldry joined a youth theatre group in Taunton, Somerset.3] and performed as Sandy Tyrell in Hay Fever for the local amateur society, Taunton Thespians. At age 18, he won a Royal Air Force scholarship to read English at the University of Sheffield, where he became chairman of the Sheffield University Theatre Group.

After graduation, he spent a year travelling through Italy, where he became a clown's apprentice.[citation needed] He then trained as an actor on the postgraduate course at East 15 Acting School from 1982 to 1983, now part of the University of Essex.

Career

Daldry began his career as an apprentice at the Sheffield Crucible from 1985 to 1988, working under artistic director Clare Venables. He also headed productions at the Manchester Library Theatre, Liverpool Playhouse, Stratford East, Oxford Stage, Brighton and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He was Artistic Director of the Royal Court Theatre from 1992–98, where he headed the £26 million development scheme. He was also Artistic Director of London's Gate Theatre (1989–92) and the Metro Theatre Company (1984–86). He is currently on the Board of the Young and Old Vic Theatres and remains an Associate Director of the Royal Court Theatre. He was the Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre for 2002 at St Catherine's College, Oxford.

Daldry made his feature film directorial debut with Billy Elliot (2000), which launched the film career of Jamie Bell. His next film was The Hours, which earned Nicole Kidman her first Best Actress win at the Academy Awards. He went on to direct a stage musical adaptation of Billy Elliot, and in 2009 his work earned him a Tony Award for Best Director of a Musical. He has also made a film version of The Reader (2008), based on the book of the same name and starring Kate Winslet, David Kross and Ralph Fiennes. The film won Best Actress at the Academy Awards for Kate Winslet. Daldry's fourth film was Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, an adaptation of the book of the same name written by Jonathan Safran Foer, starring Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, and Max von Sydow. The screenplay was written by Eric Roth. The film received a nomination for Best Picture at the 84th Academy Awards and a nomination for von Sydow for Best Supporting Actor.

Daldry was initially slated to direct a Star Wars spin off film about the iconic Star Wars character Obi Wan Kenobi but the film was later scrapped due to the commercial failure of Solo: A Star Wars Story with Daldry saying the cancellation of the film crushed him and Hossein Amini . However, ideas from Daldry's originally planned film were repurposed for the Obi Wan Kenobi Disney + limited series directed by Deborah Chow and released in 2022 for which Daldry received credit as a consulting producer.

In July 2022 it was revealed that Daldry would work with Sonia Friedman to develop a play based on the hit Netflix television show Stranger Things. No plot , story or character details for the potential play have yet been disclosed
Personal life

Daldry was in a relationship with set designer Ian MacNeil for 13 years. They met at an outdoor production of Alice in Wonderland in Lancaster in 1988, and after settling in Camberwell, began collaborating on theatrical productions.

Greatly impacted[clarification needed] by the September 11 attacks in the United States, Daldry decided he wanted to start a family and married American performance artist and magazine editor Lucy Sexton, with whom he has a daughter. Despite this, he continues to refer to himself as gay because the public "don't like confusion."

Filmography

Film

1998     Eight (short film)
2000     Billy Elliot
2002     The Hours
2008     The Reader
2011     Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
2014     Trash
2021     Together