​Simon Moore

Biography

​Simon Moore, born on March 1, 1958, in Lambeth, London, is a distinguished British screenwriter, director, and playwright. He is best known for creating the acclaimed 1989 BBC miniseries Traffik, which delved into the international illegal drug trade. This series served as the foundation for the 2000 Oscar-winning film Traffic and a 2004 USA Network miniseries of the same name. ​

Career Highlights

Moore's career commenced in the mid-1980s when he submitted a pilot script to the BBC about female ex-convicts reintegrating into society. This led to the six-part series Inside Out, aired on BBC2 in 1985. ​

In 1991, he wrote and directed Under Suspicion, a film noir set in 1950s Brighton. He later penned the screenplay for The Quick and the Dead (1995), a Western homage to Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns, notable for featuring a female lead and biblical allusions in character and town names.

Moore's adaptation of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels for a 1996 miniseries earned him a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries. He also wrote and co-produced The 10th Kingdom (2000), a ten-hour fantasy series exploring fairy tales from an adult perspective. ​Television Academy+2

In 2001, Moore adapted James Gurney's Dinotopia into a six-hour miniseries depicting a utopian world where humans and dinosaurs coexist. This was followed by his 2002 adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen for television.

Theatre Contributions

Beyond screenwriting, Moore co-wrote and directed the musical Up on the Roof, which debuted at Plymouth Theatre Royal before transferring to London's Donmar Warehouse and Apollo Theatre. The production was a finalist for the Evening Standard Drama Awards and received three Laurence Olivier Award nominations, including Best Musical.