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Curated playlist

Film directors from Los Angeles

  • Alfred HitchcockAt age five, Alfred Hitchcock was sent to a police station with a note and locked in a cell.
  • Simon KinbergSimon Kinberg plays a banker in his own script for Mr. & Mrs. Smith. He began that screenplay as a film school thesis.
  • Matthew Robinson (writer)Matthew Robinson sent Ricky Gervais a script with no introduction. It became The Invention of Lying.
  • Orson WellesOrson Welles burned ten reels of his own Don Quixote film. He felt the 1969 Moon landings made its ending obsolete.
  • Steven SpielbergSteven Spielberg walked into Universal Studios without a pass, and the guard waved him in.
  • David LynchDavid Lynch began as a painter who just wanted his canvases to move. That wish led him to film.
  • Christopher NolanChristopher Nolan has no smartphone and no email address. He hand-delivers his scripts to the actors he wants.
  • Nicolas CageNicolas Cage was 15 years old when he told his uncle, the director Francis Ford Coppola, "I'll show you acting." He wanted a screen test. What he got was silence in the car. His uncle had already directed Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Gene…
  • Paul Thomas AndersonPaul Thomas Anderson, the American filmmaker known by his initials PTA, earned a C+ on his very first film school assignment. The task at New York University was simple: write a single page of screenplay. Anderson handed in a page from…
  • John WayneJohn Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison and got his new name from a dog.
  • Tom HanksTom Hanks lost 35 pounds to play a dying lawyer in Philadelphia. He thinned his hair and learned to walk differently.
  • William WylerDirector William Wyler once made Henry Fonda do forty takes of one scene. His only note was the word again.
  • Guillermo del ToroAt about eight, Guillermo del Toro filmed a serial killer potato with a Super 8 camera. It sought world domination.
  • Angelina JolieAngelina Jolie has appeared in films that grossed more than $6.9 billion worldwide, and Hollywood has named her its highest-paid actress several times. As a teenager, though, she took at-home courses on embalming because she hoped to…
  • Sean PennIn Kyiv in November 2022, Sean Penn handed an Oscar statuette to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. "This is for you. It's just a symbolic silly thing...When you win, bring it back to Malibu." That was the whole speech. Penn is an…
  • John LasseterDisney fired John Lasseter in 1984 after he pitched a film blending hand-drawn art with computer backgrounds.
  • Robert RedfordRobert Redford died in his sleep at his home in Sundance, Utah, on the 16th of September 2025. He was 89 years old. After a private funeral, he was buried on his own property there. The man who ended his days in a place that carried his…
  • Bryan CranstonIn 1968, a 12-year-old Bryan Cranston was riding horses with his cousin at Spahn Ranch when he met Charles Manson. About a year later, Manson ordered the Tate-LaBianca murders. Cranston grew up to become an American actor and filmmaker…
  • Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Schwarzenegger broke into a locked gym on weekends as a teenager. He later became California's governor.
  • Howard KazanjianHoward Kazanjian proposed filming Return of the Jedi as a fake horror movie called Blue Harvest.
  • John SingletonAt 24, John Singleton became the first African American nominated for the Best Director Oscar.
  • Jonathan KasdanJonathan Kasdan first appeared on screen in 1983, playing the son of Harold and Sarah in The Big Chill, a film made by his own father. Today his name appears in credits as a screenwriter, director, producer and actor. The path between…
  • Diane KeatonDiane Keaton was born Diane Hall, but she gave up that surname before her career took off, because another actress was already registered under it. She chose her mother's maiden name instead. The new name would be credited in films across…
  • Rob ReinerRob Reiner, the American filmmaker, actor and political activist, once joked about how firmly a sitcom nickname had attached itself to him. "I could win the Nobel Prize and they'd write 'Meathead wins the Nobel Prize.'" The remark came…
  • Steve BinderDirector Steve Binder destroyed every other take of a song so NBC had to air it.
  • Jodie FosterJodie Foster was a teenager when she acted as a French interpreter at a press conference during the Cannes Film Festival. The film was Taxi Driver, which won the Palme d'Or that year, and the journalists in the room came away impressed. By…
  • Shia LaBeoufShia LaBeouf, the American actor and filmmaker born in 1986, walked the red carpet at the Berlin Film Festival on the 9th of February 2014 in a tuxedo with a brown paper bag over his head. Across the bag were written the words "I am not…

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