Matthew Chapman

Matthew Chapman (also credited as Matthew H.D. Chapman) is an English-born writer, journalist, and filmmaker known for blending sharp ideas with character-driven storytelling. Born on September 2, 1950, in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, he has built a career across screenwriting, directing, and long-form nonfiction.

Chapman wrote and directed the feature The Ledge, a tense drama starring Charlie Hunnam, Liv Tyler, Terence Howard, and Patrick Wilson. Shot in Louisiana and selected for the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, the film centers on a high-stakes clash between an atheist and an evangelical Christian that turns personal and deadly.

Coming from a family steeped in scholarship, Chapman is a great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, and his lineage also includes prominent figures in philosophy, poetry, physics, and astronomy. He has written extensively about the creation–evolution debate in the United States, including the landmark Kitzmiller v. Dover school case, and has appeared on screen as himself in projects tied to science and skepticism.

Beyond film, Chapman has published in Harper’s and authored books including Trials Of The Monkey and 40 Days and 40 Nights. He also helped launch Science Debate (originally Science Debate 2008), an initiative urging U.S. leaders to address science and technology in public life, and he continues to be associated with its mission from his base in New York.