Straughan also adapted Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, as seen on MASTERPIECE.
Peter Straughan has won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Conclave at the 97th Academy Awards, held on March 2, 2025. Straughan previously picked up the Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice, and BAFTA award for Conclave, the Vatican thriller based on Robert Harris’s 2016 novel of the same name.
Straughan thanked author “Robert Harris, for your beautiful book. We’re all standing on your shoulders.” He endearingly included his daughter in his remarks. “Connie, I love you. This is for you. And that’s not the same as saying it’s yours,” he cracked. “It’s not like that jumper that you keep taking, okay? This is mine.”
Straughan is also the scribe behind Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, adapted for MASTERPIECE from the final novel in Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning trilogy about Henry VIII’s quick-witted advisor Thomas Cromwell. The screenwriter received an Emmy nomination for penning the first season of that drama, Wolf Hall, which aired in 2015.
The original Wolf Hall tells the gripping tale of Cromwell’s rise from blacksmith’s son to the second most powerful man in England—based purely on his intellectual gifts and ambition. “With Wolf Hall, I felt I had to settle on one strand of [Mantel’s] story and treat that as a spine,” Straughan tells the BBC. “The spine I chose was…Cromwell’s loyalty to [Cardinal] Wolsey and consequent desire to revenge his fall and death. …I felt this revenge story was so visceral and dynamic that it was the most useful engine to keep us moving forward.”
Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light sees Damian Lewis and Mark Rylance reprise their roles as Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell. The sequel picks up Cromwell’s revenge story in the last four years of his life. While the despotic Henry grows ever more frustrated with the political turmoil around him, he directs his anger toward Cromwell, who struggles to maintain his position. The sequel brings six weekly installments of historical drama that The Guardian (UK) calls “The best TV you’ll see all year.”
Peter Straughan began his writing career at the Live Theatre in Newcastle. Former artistic director Max Roberts tells BBC Radio that Straughan is a “genuinely lovely man. …It’s so good to know that one of the good guys has got the top award.”
Watch a trailer for Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light
Want to stream Wolf Hall Season 1 and Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light? Watch all episodes online and on the free PBS app. [General streaming available in the U.S. and Territories only.]
