Nick Marston

I am an agent specialising in writers and directors for theatre, film and television as well as literary material for screen. I am also the Chairman of the Theatre, Film and Television department here.

I started work in publishing, at Methuen books, and wrote for the books and film pages of GQ and Vogue before I joined literary agents A.P. Watt. There I worked with Rod Hall, a great mentor of mine, to build up a preeminent list of playwrights, screenwriters and directors. I also worked closely with the books department, developing and selling books for film and television. A famous deal was the sale of Nicholas Evans' first novel The Horse Whisperer (half completed!) to Disney for Robert Redford's company for a record sum at the time.

I arrived at Curtis Brown in 1997 with the intention of reestablishing its presence in theatre, film and television. I am delighted to say we now have a fantastic list of writers and directors in these areas.

I have developed a particular interest in playwrights and directors from Ireland. I started visiting the Dublin Theatre Festival and found a group of writers whose work stood out for its boldness and originality.

In the past few years, I have started to build a list of filmakers and have greatly enjoyed working with directors such as John Hillcoat, Niels Arden Oplev and Rowan Joffe.

In 2008, I set up Cuba Pictures with Tally Garner. The aim was to collaborate with our authors and screenwriters to develop and produce film and television. Our first film was Boy A, written by Mark O'Rowe from the novel by Jonathan Trigell, directed by John Crowley and and starrring Andrew Garfield. It was produced for Channel 4 and sold for international theatrical release to the Weinstein Co. It won 5 BAFTAs, including the youngest ever Best Actor Award and a string of other awards, such as the Broadcast Award and The Hitchcock D'Or at the Dinard Festival.  We followed that up with Broken, written by Mark O’Rowe based on the novel by Daniel Clay and directed by Rufus Norris. Financed by BBC Films, it opened Critics’ Week in Cannes and won Best Film at the BIFA’s. Studio Canal are releasing.