Alex Godfrey is Empire’s Features Editor, commissioning and editing everything from blockbuster cover-stories to 3,000-word pieces about ravens (yes, actual ravens. Acting ravens. Actual acting ravens). He writes for all sections of the magazine. He’d write the adverts too, if he could.
Having seen Star Wars as an agog four year old, Alex became movie-obsessed, spending much if his youth in cinemas, then working in one: the Prince Charles, as an usher and writer (of reviews and previews), for three years, which served as a sort of alternative film-school. That led to a career in journalism, starting at Hotdog magazine, where a 2001 career-interview with Dennis Hopper got Alex nominated for the PPA’s New Consumer Journalist Of The Year.
After leaving Hotdog as Deputy Editor, Alex worked for numerous publications, and as a freelancer wrote film features for The Guardian, The Guardian Guide, GQ, Esquire, Sunday Times Culture, The Telegraph, The Independent and, from 2010 onwards, Empire. He joined Empire full-time as Features Editor in early 2020, just before the pandemic kicked in, and just before all cinemas shut up shop for a few months. Over the course of that year, he commissioned features that might otherwise have not existed, including an essay by Tom Hanks on his film Greyhound, written as the actor himself was recovering from Covid, and Alex’s joint interview with Sofia Coppola and Kirsten Dunst, discussing their ongoing collaborations with each other as they were both in lockdown limbo.
As an Empire writer, Alex has written world-exclusive cover stories on the likes of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon and Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice; written deep-dive, all-access retrospectives on the likes of Con Air; and made excuses for Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom. His favourite interviewee is – every time – David Lynch. Especially when they discuss Cheetos.
In 2023, Alex won the BSME award forBest Feature Writer, and was nominated again in 2024. He can also often be heard spouting hot takes on the Empire podcast.
He is on Twitter as @MrGodfrey.
