Ben Travis is Deputy Online Editor at Empire, having joined the team in 2018. He’s been a culture and entertainment journalist for over 10 years, and has written extensively on Star Wars, horror, Disney animation, coming-of-age films, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, kaiju movies, Studio Ghibli, the films of the Wachowskis and Richard Linklater, and much more.
As well as writing daily news stories for EmpireOnline.com, Ben regularly writes Empire reviews, features, and opinion pieces, as well as conducting interviews and appearing on the Empire Podcast and Empire Spoiler Special Podcast. Previously to Empire, he has worked at the Evening Standard, British GQ, and The Telegraph. Ben is also the co-host of Disniversity, a podcast exploring the history of Walt Disney Animation Studios film-by-film, becoming an expert on the legacy of Disney movies and mainstream studio animation. Through his journalistic and podcast enterprises, he has spoken at the BFI, the London Podcast Festival at Kings Place, the Rio Cinema, and more.
Ben’s obsession with film began back in the ‘90s, when he was mind-blown by The Matrix (while understanding nothing of what he’d just seen), terrified by The Mummy (all those scarab beetles), and confused by the political machinations of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (yes, 1999 was a formative year). He grew up compulsively buying DVDs, bingeing Buffy box sets, and watching increasingly hardcore horror films.
Some more film facts about Ben: his favourite film is Jurassic Park; he firmly believes that The Last Jedi is a Star Wars masterpiece; he can explain the intricacies of the Star Wars timeline to you in-depth; he thinks the songs in Frozen II are better than the songs in Frozen; he actually understands the events of The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions; and he once interviewed Bruce Springsteen for the Empire Podcast, which he still can’t believe actually happened.
You can find Ben at @benstravis on Twitter and Instagram.
