Charlie Henniker

Charlie was into rugby and theatre at St Paul’s, studying French, Art and English before heading to Brasenose College at Oxford to read English.

There, he got more into theatre and less into rugby, eventually taking on The Oxford Revue as Director and touring with them to the US in 2008 after a couple of sell-out Edinburgh Festival Fringe runs. He completed a Masters at SOAS (University of London) in South Asian Area Studies, majoring in Indian Cinema. During this time Charlie travelled to India, Africa and South East Asia several times.

After studying, Charlie joined BBC Studios as a researcher on work experience. From there, he moved to a permanent role in the archives department, then over to International Programme Marketing after launching “Gap Yah” outside work, and ultimately into Production. After 5 years of leading creative, production and event management teams at the BBC he left for a career break in Japan. During that break, an opportunity came up at LEGO in Denmark and he has been there ever since as their Head of Film Production.

What guidance would you give to your younger self on the day you left St Paul’s?

Enjoy this next bit, as it’s going to be a lot of fun, but be mindful that you have more on your side than most people you’ll meet. Not many people get to spend their school years in such a supportive environment with such fantastic facilities.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

“Turn up on time and be nice to people”. In Production, you’re halfway to success if people know you’re reliable and easy to get on with.

Why did you choose your current career?

I’ve always like making things happen, and as Producer my job is to work out how to fund, plan, shoot, edit, post-produce and launch a (hopefully) great idea. Every production is different, so you never stop learning, and you meet loads of talented people. You need to be prepared to be in the background and to be visible if something goes wrong but sometimes ignored if everything is going well.

I had a great mentor at St Paul’s in the form of Miss McLaren, who taught me more about page-to-stage and the interpretation of a script than pretty much anyone else I’ve met.