Philippa Boyens Bio

Philippa Boyens, MNZM, is an Academy Award winning New Zealand screenwriter who co-wrote the screenplay for Peter Jackson's film series The Lord of the Rings with Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, for which the trio won an Oscar at the 76th Academy Awards in 2004. Boyens worked with the same collaborators on the screenplay for Jackson's version of King Kong (2005). Following that movie's completion, the trio will once again work together on an adaptation of Alice Sebold's novel The Lovely Bones, which is expected to be released in 2009. She is also collaborating with Jackson, Walsh and Guillermo del Toro on The Hobbit films, due for 2011. Prior to turning to screenwriting with The Lord of the Rings, Boyens was a playwright. Boyens was a part-time student at the University of Auckland, graduating with a BA in English and History in 1994. She received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the univsersity in 2006.[1] She has two children, daughter Phoebe Gittins, and son Calum Gittins, who starred as Haleth in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers