Stephen Woolfenden

Born: 25th April 1966 (as Stephen Mark Woolfenden)
Episodes Broadcast: 2013

Biography

Stephen Woolfenden was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, and was a fan of Doctor Who during Jon Pertwee's time as the Third Doctor. During his teenaged years, he was a member of the National Youth Theatre. Woolfenden's television career began in the mid-Eighties, when he initially worked as a floor runner but also found opportunities as a trainee assistant director on shows like John Silver's Return To Treasure Island. During the Nineties, he was an assistant director on a variety of television shows like Murder Most Horrid and the Neil Gaiman co-creation Neverwhere. Woolfenden also worked on movies like The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain and Shine. In 1999, he married camera operator Chyna Thomson; they would have two children.

Following the turn of the century, Woolfenden continued to work as an assistant director on programmes including Happiness and State Of Play, and he was a second unit director on the last four Harry Potter movies. Around the middle of the decade, however, he became a fully-fledged television director in his own right, initially working on the children's series The Mysti Show before moving on to projects such as Echo Beach and Trinity. In 2013, Woolfenden was reunited with Gaiman on Nightmare In Silver, a Doctor Who adventure for Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor which revamped the Cybermen. Amongst his other directorial credits were episodes of DCI Banks, Beowulf: Return To The Shieldlands and Poldark; he was the lead director on Outlander for its fifth season. Woolfenden also served as a second unit director on movies like Pokémon: Detective Pikachu and the Fantastic Beasts series. His television work during the Twenties included Fate: The Winx Saga.

Credits
Director
Nightmare In Silver

Updated 17th October 2022