James McTeigue, the director of the critically acclaimed and commercially successful movie, V for Vendetta, first came to prominence in the late 1990s as assistant director on the three Matrix films and later as assistant director on Star Wars Episode II – Attack of the Clones.

McTeigue first became involved in the film industry in the late 1980s, acting as second assistant director in a number of small Australian films. It was however, in 1994 that McTeigue broke into mainstream Hollywood, being the second assistant director on the big budget Street Fighter. In 1997 he was the second assistant director for WWII film, Paradise Road, as well as the television series, Big Sky. The following year he was assistant director for the American sci-fi film, Dark City, as well as Australian film, The Sugar Factory.

It was the following year, that McTeigue really came to be recognized for his film making expertise. McTeigue was apparently going to act as second assistant director for The Matrix film, that is, until the first assistant director, a friend of McTeigue who told him about the project had to drop out, which saw the Wachowski Brothers make McTeigue first assistant. The film was released in 1999 and became a huge global success.

In 2002 McTeigue worked with George Lucas, as he became the first assistant director for Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones. The following year he was also the first assistant director for both Matrix sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. In 2006 McTeigue made his directorial debut, directing the Wachowski brothers’ produced film, V for Vendetta. After spending so much time on The Matrix film series, the brothers gave theopportunity to McTeigue to direct, first showing him a copy of Vendetta graphic novel during postproduction of The Matrix Revolutions. McTeigue has been highly praised since the film’s release in spring of 2006.

McTeigue’s latest directing outing, Ninja Assassin, starring Rain and Naomie Harris was a worldwide commercial hit. The film was produced by Joel Silver and the Wachowski Brothers, and filming took place in Berlin.

McTeigue has also had a high degree of exposure to the commercial genre, previously directing action packed campaigns for Samsung, Heineken and Powerade and acting as assistant director on more than a hundred commercials.