Matthew Chapman

Director & actor · born 2 September 1950 · Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK

Matthew Chapman is a journalist, screenwriter, and director. His latest film, "The Ledge," which he wrote and directed, stars Charlie Hunnam, Liv Tyler, Terence Howard, and Patrick Wilson. It was shot in Louisiana in spring 2010 and was accepted into the main (U.S. Dramatic) competition at Sundance 2011. Bought by IFC, it will have its theatrical release in the U.S. in early summer. The film deals with an intellectual, personal, and ultimately fatal feud between an atheist and an evangelical Christian.

Matthew Chapman's mother Clare was the daughter of the philosophy professor and author Francis Cornford and poet Frances Cornford (née Darwin), and through his maternal grandmother he is a great-great grandson of Charles Darwin. His father, Cecil Chapman, was the son of the noted physicist and astronomer, Sydney Chapman, responsible for early research on the nature of the ozone layer.

Where to start: The Ledge (2011).