# Jez Butterworth
**Jez Butterworth** (born Jeremy Butterworth, 1969, London) is a British playwright and screenwriter whose work is often rooted in myth, folklore and the complexities of English identity. He made his name with his debut play *Mojo* (1995), and his signature play *Jerusalem* (2009), starring [Mark Rylance](https://www.edgepedia.org/mark-rylance) as Johnny "Rooster" Byron, is widely regarded as one of the most successful and critically examined pieces of twenty-first-century new writing on the UK stage[1](https://livingarchive.royalcourttheatre.com/people/jez-butterworth/) • [2](https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/staging-class-conflict-in-the-uk/131530C0A216D2ED89432928DB3A80E3).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born | 1969, London, England[1](https://livingarchive.royalcourttheatre.com/people/jez-butterworth/) |
| Stage debut | 1995, with *Mojo* at the Royal Court Theatre[1](https://livingarchive.royalcourttheatre.com/people/jez-butterworth/) |
| Signature play | *Jerusalem* (2009); Royal Court 2009, West End 2010, Broadway 2011, Apollo remount 2022 with Mark Rylance[2](https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/staging-class-conflict-in-the-uk/131530C0A216D2ED89432928DB3A80E3) |
| Major awards | Olivier Award for Best Comedy (*Mojo*); Evening Standard Award for Best Play (*Jerusalem*); 2019 Tony Award for Best Play (*The Ferryman*)[3](https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/plays-to-perform/jez-butterworth) |
| Screenwriting credits | *Fair Game* (2010), *Get On Up* (2014), *Edge of Tomorrow* (2014), *Black Mass* (2015), *Spectre* (2015), *Ford v Ferrari* (2019), *Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny* (2023)[3](https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/plays-to-perform/jez-butterworth) |
| Recent television | *Mobland* and *The Agency* for Paramount+, both prepping second seasons as of April 2026[4](https://nz.news.yahoo.com/jez-butterworth-sets-five-film-163000850.html) |
| Universal deal | Five-year film and television deal with Universal Entertainment, beginning January 2027[4](https://nz.news.yahoo.com/jez-butterworth-sets-five-film-163000850.html) |
## Early life and debut
Butterworth grew up, the second youngest of five children, on a 1960s cul-de-sac in [St Albans](https://www.edgepedia.org/st-albans); both of his parents were part Irish Catholics. Two of his brothers are also writers, with whom he has worked, another is a producer, and his late sister Joanne was registrar at the drama school Lamda[5](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/nov/04/jez-butterworth-playwright-without-equal-turns-his-gaze-on-the-troubles). A student production of [Brian Friel](https://www.edgepedia.org/brian-friel)'s *Translations* at Cambridge, where he followed his older brother from comprehensive school, made him realize that theater was what he wanted to write[5](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/nov/04/jez-butterworth-playwright-without-equal-turns-his-gaze-on-the-troubles).
After university he worked briefly as an office boy in an advertising agency, then he and his brother Tom signed on, left London and lived an impoverished life in a cottage in a [Wiltshire](https://www.edgepedia.org/wiltshire) village, focusing on writing[5](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/nov/04/jez-butterworth-playwright-without-equal-turns-his-gaze-on-the-troubles). He survived for a year on the £1,500 the producer André Ptaszynski had paid him to write *Mojo*, working in the Pewsey cottage[6](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/nov/04/jez-butterworth-mojo-jerusalem).
**Mojo.** His debut play, a fast-talking, violence-soaked gangster drama set around a club in 1950s Soho, opened at the Royal Court in 1995 to ecstatic reviews. It was the first debut play staged in the theater's main space since [John Osborne](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-osborne)'s *Look Back in Anger* in 1956, and it won the George Devine Award, the Olivier Award for Best Comedy and the Writers' Guild, Critics' Circle and Evening Standard Awards for Most Promising Playwright[5](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/nov/04/jez-butterworth-playwright-without-equal-turns-his-gaze-on-the-troubles) • [3](https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/plays-to-perform/jez-butterworth). Butterworth directed his own film version in 1997, followed by *Birthday Girl* (2001) with [Nicole Kidman](https://www.edgepedia.org/nicole-kidman); neither film did terribly well commercially, and he later described the pressure of following the debut as tyrannising[5](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/nov/04/jez-butterworth-playwright-without-equal-turns-his-gaze-on-the-troubles).
Ian Rickson, who directed *Mojo* at the Royal Court, has directed many of Butterworth's stage plays, and Butterworth has called him "the most important thing in my career"[5](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/nov/04/jez-butterworth-playwright-without-equal-turns-his-gaze-on-the-troubles) • [22](https://www.nealstreetproductions.com/theatre/the-ferryman).
## The middle years
The plays that followed took time. *The Night Heron* (2002) and *The Winterling* (2006) both premiered at the Royal Court, and *Parlour Song* (2008) opened in New York at the Atlantic Theater; none of the three received the rapturous reception of *Mojo*[3](https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/plays-to-perform/jez-butterworth) • [7](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/10/nothing-2). [Harold Pinter](https://www.edgepedia.org/harold-pinter)'s 2005 Nobel prize speech kick-started *The Winterling*, not in style but as an "emotional and philosophical toolkit for how to write a play"[8](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/mar/26/jez-butterworth-open-weekend-q-and-a).
A move out of London restored his output. He left the city for Pewsey in Wiltshire, which became the fictional model for Flintock in *Jerusalem*, and later spoke of breeding and eating his own pigs on a farm there for five years[9](https://www.americantheatre.org/2012/04/01/jez-butterworth-chasing-goosebumps/) • [10](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/mar/24/jez-butterworth). He credited the burst of creativity that produced *Jerusalem* to having children, moving to the country and finding space to think[11](https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/may/14/saturday-interview-jez-butterworth).
## Jerusalem and Englishness
*Jerusalem* was written in 2003, took a read-through at the Royal Court for Butterworth to realize it was "hopeless" in that draft, and eventually opened at the Royal Court in 2009[11](https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/may/14/saturday-interview-jez-butterworth). Set in the English countryside, it centers on Johnny "Rooster" Byron, a local misfit living in a small Wiltshire community who clashes with officials and others trying to remove him from where he lives[12](https://www.whatsonstage.com/news/jerusalem-to-be-revived-at-the-watermill_1735437/). Butterworth imagined Mark Rylance in the role while writing[13](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2024/apr/04/jez-butterworth-hills-of-california-interview-harvey-weinstein-metoo).
The play transferred to the [Apollo Theatre](https://www.edgepedia.org/apollo-theatre) in the West End in 2010, played a sold-out and extended Broadway run in New York in 2011, returned to the Apollo later that year, and was remounted again in 2022 with Rylance still in the lead[2](https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/staging-class-conflict-in-the-uk/131530C0A216D2ED89432928DB3A80E3). The play took home Best Play honors from the [Critics' Circle](https://www.edgepedia.org/critics-circle), the [Evening Standard](https://www.edgepedia.org/evening-standard), and WhatsOnStage.com, and it received a Tony Award nomination for Best Play.[3](https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/plays-to-perform/jez-butterworth) When it opened, critics reached for superlatives and audiences queued out of the door, giving it a near-mythical reputation almost instantly[14](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/apr/04/is-jerusalem-the-play-of-the-century-top-playwrights-give-their-verdicts).
**A contested England.** The theme of Englishness takes center stage in the play. Scholars have read it as developing a vision of disenfranchised working-class culture, drawing on Shakespeare, folkloric figures such as the [Green Man](https://www.edgepedia.org/green-man) and the pagan god Woden, embedded in specific English locations yet not exclusive to any one ethnicity; the same scholarship notes the political danger that far-right figures have encouraged followers to mine [English folklore](https://www.edgepedia.org/english-folklore) as part of an attempt to lay claim to Englishness[15](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504630.2024.2303119). Class-focused analyses have highlighted the ambiguous duality of Rooster himself, described by Julia Boll as "both the scapegoat and the monster", and by Nadine Holdsworth as a figure "to be reviled and admired in equal measure as he teeters between compelling anti-hero and repugnant waster"[2](https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/staging-class-conflict-in-the-uk/131530C0A216D2ED89432928DB3A80E3). Butterworth's Guardian critic Michael Billington described him as "haunted by the nature of Englishness: he constantly asks how we preserve ancestral memories and countryside rituals in an age of ribbon development and hi-tech advance"[5](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/nov/04/jez-butterworth-playwright-without-equal-turns-his-gaze-on-the-troubles).
Butterworth himself described the fifteen years leading up to finishing the play in 2009 as a "rolling experience of feeling this land get louder and louder in my ears", and called *Jerusalem* "the most spectacular midlife crisis"[16](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/dec/03/britannia-jez-butterworth-sky-atlantic).
## The Ferryman, The Hills of California, and collaboration
*The River* (2012) premiered at the Royal Court and reached Broadway in 2014 with [Hugh Jackman](https://www.edgepedia.org/hugh-jackman), again directed by Ian Rickson, set in a remote cabin where a fisherman has an enigmatic encounter with two women[3](https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/plays-to-perform/jez-butterworth) • [17](https://time.com/3211673/broadway-fall-preview/).
Butterworth met the Northern Irish actor [Laura Donnelly](https://www.edgepedia.org/laura-donnelly) in 2012 when she starred in *The River* alongside [Dominic West](https://www.edgepedia.org/dominic-west); they are a couple with two children, and he wrote the leading role of Caitlin for her in *The Ferryman* (2017)[13](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2024/apr/04/jez-butterworth-hills-of-california-interview-harvey-weinstein-metoo). *The Ferryman*, set on a County Armagh farmhouse in 1981 at the time of the hunger strikes, turned on a missing brother and the arrival of an IRA power-broker, details culled from Donnelly's family history; the plot was dreamt up by both of them in a car driving to upstate New York in a snowstorm[13](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2024/apr/04/jez-butterworth-hills-of-california-interview-harvey-weinstein-metoo) • [18](https://time.com/7071859/jez-butterworth-laura-donnelly-interview-the-hills-of-california/). Among its honors were the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Play, Best New Play prizes from the Critics' Circle, the Oliviers, and WhatsOnStage, and a 2019 Tony Award for Best Play.[3](https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/plays-to-perform/jez-butterworth)
*The Hills of California*, which premiered at the Harold Pinter Theatre in the West End in 2024 under the direction of Sam Mendes, was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and opened on Broadway in September 2024, where Donnelly starred[19](https://www.bruford.ac.uk/jez-butterworths-the-hills-of-california-and-london-premiere-of-wildfire-road-announced-as-part-of-spring-season-2026/) • [18](https://time.com/7071859/jez-butterworth-laura-donnelly-interview-the-hills-of-california/). Butterworth described it as a memory play, drawing on the six months of end-of-life care his sister Joanna received before dying of ovarian cancer, and on his own experience of sexual abuse at the age of 15[18](https://time.com/7071859/jez-butterworth-laura-donnelly-interview-the-hills-of-california/).
## Screen and television work
Butterworth has maintained a parallel career as a sought-after screenwriter[7](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/10/nothing-2). His credits include *Fair Game* (2010), *Get On Up* (2014), *Edge of Tomorrow* (2014), *Black Mass* (2015), *Spectre* (2015), *Ford v Ferrari* (2019) and *Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny* (2023); several of these, including *Ford v Ferrari* and *Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny*, are shared with one or another of his brothers[3](https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/plays-to-perform/jez-butterworth) • [18](https://time.com/7071859/jez-butterworth-laura-donnelly-interview-the-hills-of-california/). He worked on the Bond film *Skyfall* as well, making script changes[7](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/10/nothing-2).
In television he created *Britannia* for Sky Atlantic, whose episodes became available on 18 January 2018, and which he saw as "a story about the clash between gods"[16](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/dec/03/britannia-jez-butterworth-sky-atlantic). More recently he collaborated with 101 Studios and Chris McCarthy on the Paramount+ show *Mobland*, starring Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren, and is behind the spy show *The Agency* for Paramount+; both were prepping second seasons as of April 2026[4](https://nz.news.yahoo.com/jez-butterworth-sets-five-film-163000850.html). In April 2026 Variety reported that he had signed a five-year film and television deal with Universal Entertainment beginning in January 2027, working with Universal Pictures on film and with Pearlena Igbokwe's Universal Studio Group on linear and streaming projects[4](https://nz.news.yahoo.com/jez-butterworth-sets-five-film-163000850.html).
## 2027 revivals
Two Butterworth plays return to English stages in 2027. *Jerusalem* runs from 19 March to 24 April 2027 at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury, presented in association with Fiery Angel, co-directed by Paul Hart and Georgie Staight and based on Lisa Blair's 2018 production at the theater; the play's setting lies less than ten miles from the venue, giving the staging a particular sense of homecoming[12](https://www.whatsonstage.com/news/jerusalem-to-be-revived-at-the-watermill_1735437/). At the Park Theatre in London, *Mojo* returns for the first time in 14 years, playing 4 March to 10 April 2027 in a production directed by Max Harrison, the first London revival since 2013[20](https://www.anrpr.co.uk/post/brilliant-new-writing-a-landmark-jez-butterworth-revival-and-a-new-move-into-opera-lead-park-theatr).
## Assessment
David Ian Rabey's study *The Theatre and Films of Jez Butterworth* (Methuen Drama) calls him the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful new British dramatist of the 21st century, with *Jerusalem* enjoying extended runs in the West End and on Broadway[21](https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/theatre-and-films-of-jez-butterworth-9781408183953/). Butterworth's own account of his practice is unsentimental: "I can't hold anything back with the plays - I have to drain the well and hope it refills"[16](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/dec/03/britannia-jez-butterworth-sky-atlantic).
## References
1. [Jez Butterworth, Royal Court Living Archive](https://livingarchive.royalcourttheatre.com/people/jez-butterworth/)
2. [Staging Class Conflict in the UK, Cambridge University Press](https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/staging-class-conflict-in-the-uk/131530C0A216D2ED89432928DB3A80E3)
3. [Jez Butterworth, Nick Hern Books](https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/plays-to-perform/jez-butterworth)
4. [Jez Butterworth Sets Five Year Film and TV Deal with Universal Entertainment, Variety via Yahoo](https://nz.news.yahoo.com/jez-butterworth-sets-five-film-163000850.html)
5. [Jez Butterworth: playwright 'without equal' turns his gaze on the Troubles, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/nov/04/jez-butterworth-playwright-without-equal-turns-his-gaze-on-the-troubles)
6. [Jez Butterworth recovers his Mojo, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/nov/04/jez-butterworth-mojo-jerusalem)
7. [Jez Butterworth's True Calling, The New Yorker](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/10/nothing-2)
8. [Jez Butterworth's Open Weekend Q&A, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/mar/26/jez-butterworth-open-weekend-q-and-a)
9. [Jez Butterworth: Chasing Goosebumps, American Theatre](https://www.americantheatre.org/2012/04/01/jez-butterworth-chasing-goosebumps/)
10. [The grass is greener, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/mar/24/jez-butterworth)
11. [The Saturday interview: Jez Butterworth, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/may/14/saturday-interview-jez-butterworth)
12. [Jerusalem to be revived at the Watermill, WhatsOnStage](https://www.whatsonstage.com/news/jerusalem-to-be-revived-at-the-watermill_1735437/)
13. ['This is more than a #MeToo drama': Jez Butterworth on his new play, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2024/apr/04/jez-butterworth-hills-of-california-interview-harvey-weinstein-metoo)
14. [Is Jerusalem still the play of the century?, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/apr/04/is-jerusalem-the-play-of-the-century-top-playwrights-give-their-verdicts)
15. [Uncivil and unruly Englishness: mythologies of England recast in the work of Jez Butterworth and Angela Carter](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504630.2024.2303119)
16. [Jez Butterworth: 'I'm broadcasting on a frequency some people won't get', The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/dec/03/britannia-jez-butterworth-sky-atlantic)
17. [Broadway Fall Preview: Revivals, Stars and Sting, TIME](https://time.com/3211673/broadway-fall-preview/)
18. [Jez Butterworth and Laura Donnelly on Marriage, Loss, and Their New Broadway Collaboration, TIME](https://time.com/7071859/jez-butterworth-laura-donnelly-interview-the-hills-of-california/)
19. [The Hills of California and London premiere of Wildfire Road announced, Rose Bruford College](https://www.bruford.ac.uk/jez-butterworths-the-hills-of-california-and-london-premiere-of-wildfire-road-announced-as-part-of-spring-season-2026/)
20. [Park Theatre's 2027 Park200 season announcement, ANR PR](https://www.anrpr.co.uk/post/brilliant-new-writing-a-landmark-jez-butterworth-revival-and-a-new-move-into-opera-lead-park-theatr)
21. [The Theatre and Films of Jez Butterworth, Bloomsbury](https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/theatre-and-films-of-jez-butterworth-9781408183953/)
22. [The Ferryman](https://www.nealstreetproductions.com/theatre/the-ferryman)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Theater and dance › Playwrights and dramatists › Anglophone playwrights › Modern and contemporary British dramatists*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 12, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license