Bio

BLACKLISTED, NICHOLL Quarterfinalist and PAGE Semi-finalist writer and film & television director, currently working out of London. Repped by Independent in the UK and WME in the US. 

In 1977, aged 8, Declan was taken to the cinema for the first time - running up and down the aisles playing aeroplanes. The film started and as the Star Destroyer chased the Rebel blockade-runner across the screen, he became transfixed, mesmerised by the spectacle. Star Wars was his introduction into cinema.

Embedding himself into the Oxford School of Speech and Drama only convinced him that the world wasn’t yet ready for his unique anti-acting style, so after this brief incarceration and whilst still remaining painfully under educated and overdressed, he earned a place on the prestigious Fuji Film Scholarship at Bournemouth Film School.

His 1st short film, A FROZEN CHICKEN SAVES THE SOAPS DAY was invited to many European film festivals. His 2nd satirical short, POTEMKIN: The Runner’s Cut, starring Charles Dance, won audience acclaim at the Munich and Angers film festivals. 

With his baseball cap at a jaunty angle, Declan plunged into network television drama - which resulted in a short-listing in the New Director (Fiction) category at the BAFTA Television Craft Awards.

Directing an ‘afternoon play’ adaptation of an Andy McNab novella, THE GREY MAN and the adaptation of the Val McDermid’s ‘TORMENT OF OTHERS’ (Best Crime Novel of the Year 1995) soon had Declan exchanging the jaded and faded baseball cap for an obligatory Stetson whilst shooting PRAYER OF THE BONE in Austin, Texas - (Nominated in the ‘Crime Thriller of the Year’ awards 2008 and won an Edgar Allen Poe award for best teleplay 2009).

Playing with bows and CGI arrows followed; on the BBC’s flagship ROBIN HOOD (Saturn Award Nomination for Best International Series) cohabiting with Werewolves, Vampire’s and Ghosts on the acclaimed pilot of the hit BBC show BEING HUMAN, battling Dragons on MERLIN and cavorting with Greek Mythology on ATLANTIS I & II. 

Recently, he has been writing & directing on historical epic series, BARBARIANS RISING.

In 2013 Declan became the first non-US signing from the legendary BLACK LIST for his spec script BROKEN COVE and made it onto the 2013 Hollywood Young & Hungry (a list of 100 hot screenwriters to watch).