Simon West

Simon Alexander West is an English filmmaker. He has primarily worked in the action genre, including as the director of Con Air, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, The Mechanic, and The Expendables 2. Outside of action, he directed the mystery thriller film The General's Daughter and the psychological horror film When a Stranger Calls.

Early life

West was born in Letchworth, Hertfordshire. He began his career as an assistant film editor with the BBC Film Department, where he worked on dramas and documentaries. He then left the BBC to work on commercials and music videos. His daughter Lillie West of the band Lala Lala described the experience being a filmmaker's daughter to Paper Magazine in a 2018 interview, "My dad is a filmmaker, and he has filmed pretty much every moment of my life from when I was born."

Career

1990s

West's directorial debut in 1997 with Con Air, starring Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, and John Malkovich.

2000s

West directed the 2001 action film, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Although it's an adaptation of the popular video game Tomb Raider, the development of the film was influenced by a market that "wasn't used to women leading summer blockbusters". This factor influenced his decision to cast Angelina Jolie as Croft, though she was not well known. While Lara Croft led to box office totals that were the highest for a female-led action film at that time,, inspired theme park rides, led to a sequel, and made a star of Jolie, West was disappointed that it did not lead to similar films. He noted that "at the time, the studio was incredibly nervous at what the outcome could have been. I'm surprised it's taken so long , because I thought that two or three years after, there'd be 10 other movies like it cashing in on its success... but it's amazing how things work so slowly. Finally The Hunger Games and Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman have caught up!"
Joey Nolfi states that West "molded his heroine – never bogged down by romantic subplots – as a badass genre role model for girls, with more scenes of assured tomb raiding and less overt sexuality". Critic Cristina Lucia Stasia also argues that the film Lara Croft distinguished itself from other popular "girl power" shows and films of the same period: The Matrix, Charlie's Angels, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Dark Angel, and Alias. "Simon West, the director of Tomb Raider, foregrounds tension between female sexuality and female action heroes when he argues that 'Angelina should be a role model for action actors. We turned her into something you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley – but then again you would'."

2010s–present

West would eventually work on a number of action films including the 2012 film The Expendables 2 with Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He also reunited with Nicolas Cage in 2012 for Stolen. In 2015, he directed the crime thriller film Wild Card with Jason Statham. It is a remake of the 1986 film Heat, based on the novel of the same name by William Goldman. In 2017 West directed his first feature musical comedy Gun Shy starring Antonio Banderas and based on the novel Salty by Mark Haskhell Smith. West directed the 2019 big-budget disaster movie from China, Skyfire, and will also direct another Chinese action film, The Legend Hunters.

Filmography

Films

Director

Year	Title	Notes
1997	Con Air
1999	The General's Daughter
2001	Lara Croft: Tomb Raider	Also writer
2006	When a Stranger Calls
2011	The Mechanic
2012	The Expendables 2
2012	Stolen
2015	Wild Card
2016	Gun Shy
2017	Stratton
2019	Skyfire
2024	Old Guy
2025	The Legend Hunters	Co-directed with Li Yifan
2025	Bride Hard
TBA	Fortitude	Filming

Executive producer

Black Hawk Down

Producer

''Night of the Living Dead: Darkest Dawn''
Television