Roger Michell, the director of films such as Notting Hill, Venus, and My Cousin Rachel, has passed away. One of his most recent films is "Blackbird" starring starring Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet, Mia Wasikowska, and many more A-list stars.

A statement from Michell's publicist confirmed the news, saying: "It is with great sadness that the family of Roger Michell, director, writer and father of Harry, Rosie, Maggie and Sparrow, announce his death at the age of 65 on 22 September."

There was no mention of a Roger Michell's cause of death.

"Notting Hill," a romcom scripted by Richard Curtis and starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant, was Michell's most well-known film. The film was a tremendous commercial success and received three Golden Globe nominations.

It has become somehow of a classic, as it is still quite known today. His portfolio apart from "Notting Hill" is nothing to scoff at as well. His other films include that of Ben Affleck and Samuel L Jackson's "Changing Lanes" in 2002, Peter O'Toole's final picture Venus, and two films starring Daniel Craig. These are "The Mother" in 2002 as well as the adaptation of Ian McEwan's "Enduring Love" in 2003.

Michell had been in talks to direct Craig in the 2006 James Bond picture Quantum of Solace, but he dropped out due to reservations over the screenplay. After having a heart attack in 1999, shortly after the release of Notting Hill (in which Grant's character reads the novel), he also dropped out of directing Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

Michell started out his colorful journey in the business of film with theatre work. He started as an assistant director at the Royal Court Theatre, where he worked with John Osborne and Samuel Beckett. Michell was born in South Africa and educated at Cambridge. Antonia Bird, Simon Curtis, Danny Boyle, and Hanif Kureishi were among his contemporaries.

Michell's apparent death came as a shock to the business, since he was a well-liked figure.

He was talking about working on a new documentary three weeks ago when screening The Duke at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado. Nothing Like a Dame, a 2018 documentary film in which Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, and Joan Plowright share experiences, received a slew of five-star reviews.

An interview back in 2020 revealed him quite excited to be working on a new project. "I can't imagine that anything I write will start shooting before the spring when hopefully our world will have lurched toward some sort of resolution, either though a vaccination or through other means. I told you I've just finished a film, so I was lucky to spend lockdown cutting The Duke, so I don't feel...I always feel itchy about what I'm going to do next, but a little time now where I'm going to be doing this writing and doing some thinking and wandering around is quite a nice prospect," he told Asheville Movies.