Birthday's to share this week : 22nd-28th May 2016.

Do you celebrate your Birthday this week?

Alex Garland does on 26th May - check out my tribute to this Birthday Boy turning 46, at the end of this feature.

Do you also share your birthday with a well known, highly regarded & famous Actor or Actress; share your special day with a Director, Producer, Writer, Cinematographer, Singer/Songwriter or Composer of repute; or share an interest in whoever might notch up another year in the coming seven days? Then, look no further! Whilst there will be too many to mention in this small but not insignificant and beautifully written and presented Blog, here are the more notable and noteworthy icons of the big screen, and the small screen, that you will recognise, and that you might just share your birthday with in the week ahead. If so, Happy Birthday to you from Odeon Online!

Sunday 22nd May

•  Maggie Q - Born 1979, turns 37 - Actress | Producer 
•  Ann Cusack - Born 1961, turns 55 - Actress 

Monday 23rd May 

• Melissa McBride - Born 1965, turns 51 - Actress   
• Joan Collins - Born 1933, turns 83 - Actress | Producer
• Drew Carey - Born 1958, turns 58 - Television Personality | Actor | Writer | Producer  
• John Ortiz - Born 1968, turns 48 - Actor | Producer
• Ryan Coogler - Born 1986, turns 30 - Writer | Director
• Tom Tykwer - Born 1965, turns 51 - Writer | Producer | Director | Composer | Singer | Songwriter

Tuesday 24th May

• John C. Reilly - Born 1965, turns 51 - Actor | Producer | Writer | Singer | Songwriter  
• Jim Broadbent - Born 1949, turns 67 - Actor | Writer
• Alfred Molina - Born 1953, turns 63 - Actor | Producer
• Gary Burghoff - Born 1943, turns 73 - Actor | Director
• Roger Deakins - Born 1949, turns 67 - Cinematographer | Cameraman
• Kristen Scott Thomas - Born 1960, turns 56 - Actress  

Wednesday 25th May

• Octavia Spencer - Born 1970, turns 46 - Actress | Producer  
• Jacki Weaver - Born 1947, turns 69 - Actress
• Frank Oz - Born 1944, turns 72 - Actor | Producer | Director | Singer
• Mike Myers - Born 1963, turns 53 - Actor | Writer | Producer | Director | Singer | Songwriter
• Ian McKellen - Born 1939, turns 77 - Actor | Producer | Writer
• Cillian Murphy - Born 1976, turns 40 - Actor  

Thursday 26th May

• Alex Garland - Born 1970, turns 46 - Writer | Producer | Director 
• Pam Grier - Born 1949, turns 67 - Actress
• Helena Bonham Carter - Born 1966, turns 50 - Actress | Singer  

Friday 27th May

• Paul Bettany - Born 1971, turns 45 - Actor | Producer | Writer | Director
• Joseph Fiennes - Born 1970, turns 46 - Actor
• Louis Gossett Jnr. - Born 1936, turns 80 - Actor | Producer | Director  

Saturday 28th May

• Irwin Winkler - Born 1931, turns 85 - Producer | Director | Writer  
• Kylie Minogue - Born 1968, turns 48 - Actress | Producer | Writer | Singer
• Sondra Locke - Born 1944, turns 72 - Actress | Director
• Carey Mulligan - Born 1985, turns 31 - Actress 

Alexander Medawar Garland was born in London, England to mother Caroline Medawar, a psychoanalyst and father Nicholas Garland - a political cartoonist who drew for the likes of The Daily Telegraph and The Independent newspapers. Early on he had designs on becoming a journalist having grown up around the industry given his fathers career interests. He attended the University of Manchester and graduated in 1992 with a BA degree in History of Art.

In the early 90's whilst working dead-end jobs and claiming unemployment benefit the young Garland penned his first novel - 'The Beach' - published in 1996. It went on to become a best seller - based on a young backpackers journey through Thailand in search of an idyllic, unspoilt and legendary beach occupied only by a small community of loving, sharing, caring international backpackers. In 2000 the successful book was made into a successful film Directed by Danny Boyle and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton and Robert Carlyle. The film made US$144M off its US$50M budget.

In 1999, his follow up novel 'The Tesseract' told the story of interwoven lives of gangsters, mothers and street kids set in Manilla. Not as successful as his former novel, it was nonetheless made into a film in 2003 with Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Saskia Reeves.

In 2002 he wrote the screenplay for '28 Days Later' - a post apocalyptic horror thriller that is largely credited for reinvigorating the zombie genre. Directed by Danny Boyle for just US$8M it returned US$83M and was hailed a critical and commercial success. The film starred Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson, Christopher Ecclestone and Naomi Harris. Garland served as Executive Producer on the 2007 follow-up '28 Weeks Later' with Robert Carlyle, Jeremy Renner, Idris Elba, Imogen Poots and Rose Byrne.

Next up, Garland wrote the screenplay for 'Sunshine' - his third collaboration with Director Danny Boyle in this Sci-Fi thriller starring Cillian Murphy again, and Rose Byrne, Chris Evans, Mark Strong and Michelle Yeoh. The film receive mixed reviews and failed to make back its US$40M budget costs.

He followed this up with his next screenplay for 'Never Let Me Go' based on the Kazuo Ishiguro novel as Directed by Mark Romanek with Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan, Charlotte Rampling and Andrew Garfield.  This dystopian alternate time romantic drama was critically well received but less so commercially, also failing to recover its US$15M outlay. Garland acted as Executive Producer on this film too.

'Dredd' was next in 2012 which Garland wrote the Screenplay for and Produced based on the popular Sci-Fi Action comic strip 'Judge Dredd'. Directed by Pete Travis it starred Karl Urban in the title role and just about recovered its budget costs. Garland also Executive Produced 'Big Game' in 2014 with Samuel L. Jackson, Victor Garber and Jim Broadbent in this action throwback to the films of the same ilk from the 80's and 90's. It made just US$7.5M but received generally positive reviews off its limited cinema release.

In 2015 Garland made his Directing debut with 'Ex Machina' which he also wrote. This artificial intelligence thriller starred Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac, won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and gained Garland an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and all up another 59 award wins and 131 nominations. This film made a modest US$37M off its US$15M budget.

Next up Garland is Directing 'Annihilation' for which he has also written the Screenplay based on the award winning book of the same name by Jeff VanderMeer. Filming was due to start this month on this Science Fiction story which is the first in the 'Southern Reach' trilogy, for a 2017 release and stars Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Oscar Isaac and David Gyasi. 'Halo' has also been announced based on the hugely popular Military Science Fiction video game for which he wrote a screenplay back in 2005 and was paid US$1M to do so, but was subsequently shelved, but seems to be firmly back on the Production table.

Garland has eleven writing credits to his name, four Producer credits and two Director credits. He has seventeen awards wins under his belt and another 47 nominations. He is married to British Actress Paloma Baeza with whom he has two children - Eva and Milo.

Alex Garland - heavily influenced by science and science-fiction; a writer of compelling stories and now a Director of them too; has proven so much with relatively little; and gives us great reasons to go to the movies - Happy Birthday to you Alex, from Odeon Online.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-