As Sir David Attenborough celebrates his 100th birthday, few people know the man behind the legend like Alastair Fothergill. For 40 years, this wildlife filmmaker has had a front-row seat to history—and the stories he carries are nothing short of extraordinary.
It all began with a single documentary. In 1979, a wide-eyed 26-year-old Alastair watchedLife on Earthon television and felt his entire world shift. "I remember being utterly gripped," he says. "Evolution is the greatest soap opera in nature." That one show sent him hurtling toward a career that would change everything.
By 1988, Alastair was working alongside his idol onTrials of Life. He recalls a moment that still makes him shake his head: "David would spend four, five, even six months a year on the road. We directors just followed along."
At just 27 years old, Alastair found himself directing the great man in Brazil. "We were on the banks of the Amazon, and I asked him to dive with electric eels," he remembers. "I told him we had a rubber suit that would fully insulate him. I wasn't sure it would work, but I said it anyway."
This was just one of countless breathtaking, terrifying, exhilarating moments. There was the time they filmed chimpanzees hunting monkeys for the first time—"everyone thought they were vegetarians!"—and the surreal night in Malaysian mangroves, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of synchronous fireflies.
"People don't see the pain," Alastair says with a wry smile. "They just watch the finished show." Once, on Christmas Island, all commercial flights were cancelled. Alastair convinced the Australian Air Force to fly him to Australia so they could capture David wading through a sea of red migrating crabs.
Another near-disaster happened at the North Pole: "Just as we were taking off to fly home, the ice beneath our camp split. Our camp went into the sea. I could talk all day about what went wrong."
Even after traveling the world twice over, there's one place still on the bucket list. "David loves fossils," Alastair says. "He often wishes he'd gone to Mongolia—they have some of the best dinosaur fossils on the planet."
Through every adventure, David's work ethic left a permanent mark. "He never lost his temper with me, ever," Alastair insists. "But you knew the professional standards he expected of himself. Rising to that level was always inspiring."
So what is Sir David like when the cameras stop? "What you see is what you get," Alastair says. "He's got that boyish enthusiasm off camera too. He's amazingly good fun. He's not a star in any sense—we go to the toughest, most uncomfortable places together."
The simple pleasures? "He likes a glass of red wine, some nice chocolate. Don't we all?" But celebrity—that's something David shuns. "He's not liking this spotlight at all for his 100th. He hasn't done a single interview. He'd far rather be at home with a glass of wine."
Their partnership gave birth to landmark series likeBlue Planet. "That was a huge risk," Alastair admits. "It was eight hours on fish, with David narrating but never appearing on screen. The BBC boss was terrified. But the audience didn't notice—David's voice was already legendary."
That shift extended David's career. "He's said to me, 'Thank you for extending my career.' I took him to the South Pole when he was 84. In his 90s, narration became his way of continuing. He loves working."
Nowhere is his voice more powerful than when he speaks about climate change. "Early on, David avoided environmental commentary," Alastair says. "Then we filmed a snow leopard in the wild for the first time. He told me: 'You can't care about something you don't know about.'"
His first real climate stand came withFrozen Planetin 2011. Since then, he has done immense work behind the scenes—unpaid, in his 90s. The Cabinet Office asked him to open the COP summit in Glasgow. "He gave the most powerful speech to world leaders. He never took a penny."
What's next for a man who refuses to slow down? "David always said he never wants to stop. He believes his mental and physical health comes from working, from carrying camera bags and tripods all his life. He was always the first to help a cameraman lift heavy gear."
"Nobody can say what the future will be when you turn 100. But one thing is certain: his legacy—the environmental legacy, the stories told, the species seen—will remain unforgettable."
