Jim Field Smith is a BAFTA, Emmy and Golden Globe nominated director, writer and producer, and co-founder with long-time collaborator George Kay of the production company Idiotlamp. They co-created and produced the Apple original series Hijack starring Idris Elba, and previously the Netflix series Criminal – both of which Jim also directed. He also recently directed and executive produced the factual drama Litvinenko.
Jim started out in sketch comedy before directing short films such as Goodbye To The Normals which, led to him graduating onto the major motion pictures She’s Out Of My League and Butter. He moved into television with the multi-award-winning The Wrong Mans which he co-created, produced and directed – and subsequently he co-wrote and directed the mini-series Stag. He was the originating director and executive producer of Defending The Guilty (BBC) and also directed the original pilot of Home for Channel 4. Over the years his other TV directing credits include Truth Seekers, Endeavour and Episodes.
When did you know you wanted to be a director?
I met my oldest friend and now business partner George Kay at school in the early 1990s. We did a lot of experimenting with animation and writing and recording stupid stuff. However, I think I felt I was more likely to end up either in a technical career – I was very interested in sound in particular – or a musical one. Then I started writing and performing comedy and for a while I felt like that was where I was supposed to be. It wasn’t until I directed my first short film in the mid-noughties that I suddenly felt at home – and realised it was something that pulled together all the other skills and loves that I have.
Once you knew you wanted to pursue a career as a director, what where your first steps in achieving this goal?
I started out making no-budget sketches and shorts, before booking some equally low-budget commercials which, in retrospect gave me an excellent grounding in lean storytelling, in being resourceful – but also in learning how to communicate with a film-making team, with clients, and in general how to manage the creative process.
What obstacles or set backs did you face in becoming a director?
It’s strange because I sort of slipped sideways into directing rather than setting my sights on it from a young age.
When I was working as a comedy writer there was definitely some hesitancy to “let” me direct things. The industry was still very traditional – this was before any of the streamers emerged – and much fewer shows were being made generally. I remember working on a sketch show pilot with Sharon Horgan and Dennis Kelly, when we were all just sort of nobodies, and the BBC wouldn’t trust me to direct it, so they brought in an older person to “babysit” – which feels mad now when you think of what the three of us have subsequently gone on to do.
In fairness, there has been something of a renaissance since, where commissioners are now much more interested in finding new talent and more diverse voices which, means a broader variety of people are being given a chance. I had to assume that I wouldn’t be given a chance, which meant having to make my own luck, essentially, by hiring myself as a director. Once you’ve started directing things, however insignificant, you can call yourself a director. I suppose I took the risk away from people in making that decision to hire me on bigger things.
How did you develop your voice and hone your craft?
I often say I didn’t go to film school, I went to Hollywood. Which is admittedly something only an absolute twat would say. But it’s true. I got hired on a $25million feature film, by one of the most respected studios, because they saw potential in me – but also because they knew how to protect me and themselves to ensure they still got a good end result.
DreamWorks is a studio founded by a filmmaker – arguably the greatest living filmmaker – and therefore they (along with the producers) seemed to fundamentally understand the value of finding someone young and eager, and providing me with the resources to do a great job. But I distinctly remember standing on set on my first day of shooting with the greatest wave of imposter syndrome washing over me – and the producer realised this and said “you shot your first short film in a day — this is just the same, but for 40 days in a row”. So I just put one foot in front of the other and made sure to listen and learn from everyone around me. It was the greatest education any filmmaker could ever hope for.
How did you get your first break?
The first “proper” short film was called Goodbye To The Normals, and I credit that alone with really where I am today. It was an excellent script by George Kay – focussed and mischievous and funny – and we had the opportunity to cast a really distinctive kid, who we found in Alfie Field – and then on top of that our producer Jules Hussey basically insisted that we shoot it on 35mm. She Said she would figure out how to make it work for the micro budget we had. The film aspect alone was a huge element because it really forces you to make focussed decisions and not be lazy and it definitely made a difference when people in the industry watched it, because they knew what kind of craft that involved. That short really took off in a very unexpected way, partly due to luck and timing, but also in retrospect because it was very short, had a solid punchline and this was the early days of YouTube and things going “viral” – when people used to actually email links to each other. This meant it caught the eye of agents and executives in LA – by chance rather than by design – and I suddenly found myself being sent scripts and having big meetings when I really had no experience at all and certainly nothing interesting to say. But my foot was in the door at a time when new comedy directors in particular were in short supply – and I realised I needed to seize that opportunity, which in the first instance meant making a slightly longer and more complicated short, to prove I wasn’t some kind of fluke, but also to building my skills around script-reading and not totally shitting the bed during meetings.
Once I had made the second short, I suddenly started being seriously considered for major jobs – and I discovered I was on several shortlists at studios for comedy features. I landed She’s Out Of My League partly because the looming WGA and SAG strikes in the late noughties meant Dreamworks were pre-disposed to rushing this movie into production, as long as they could find a director and get the shooting script locked in a matter of weeks. So i caught them at an excellent time, and of course they also had loved my short films which obviously helped. But it can’t be said enough that they took a huge chance on me.
TV Credits: Hijack (2023), Litvinenko (2022), Criminal (2019-2020), Truth Seekers (2020), Defending The Guilty (2019), Wrecked (2017-2018), Endeavour (2018), Stag (2016), The Wrong Mans (2013-2014), Episodes (2012)
Film Credits: Butter (2011), She’s Out Of My League (2010).
Photograph: Aidan Monaghan