Curated playlist
Film directors from New York City
- Martin ScorseseMartin Scorsese's love of movies began because asthma kept him out of games.
- Woody AllenWoody Allen failed a film production course at New York University, then went on to direct Annie Hall.
- Stanley KubrickAfter copycat crimes and death threats, Stanley Kubrick pulled A Clockwork Orange from release in the United Kingdom.
- Ben StillerBen Stiller's films have grossed more than $2.6 billion in Canada and the United States, an average of $79 million per film. Behind that figure stands Benjamin Edward Meara Stiller, an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is known…
- Mel BrooksMel Brooks was 14 years old when he climbed onto a diving board at the Butler Lodge, a second-rate hotel in the Borscht Belt. He worked there as a pool-side tummler, an entertainer hired to keep the guests amused. On this day he wore a…
- Sylvester StalloneSylvester Stallone has said that he once slept for three weeks in the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City. Decades later, he is one of only two actors in history, alongside Harrison Ford, to have starred in a box-office number one…
- Ralph BakshiRalph Bakshi sold CBS a show it already owned. CBS had acquired the Terrytoons library in 1955 and forgotten it.
- Francis Ford CoppolaMarlon Brando won the Godfather role only after a screen test and a reduced fee.
- Ken BurnsKen Burns was nearly nine when neighbors handed his family six twenty-dollar bills.
- Stanley TucciStanley Tucci Jr. gave a college classmate a nickname that the man has carried ever since. The classmate was Irving Rhames, and the nickname was Ving. Tucci handed it over while the two of them studied acting together at a state university…
- Vin DieselAt seven, Vin Diesel broke into a New York theater to vandalize it. The director caught him and offered him a role.
- J. J. AbramsJ. J. Abrams wrote his first film score at age 16 for a horror movie. The 1982 low-budget film was called Nightbeast.
- Tony GilroyTony Gilroy built Andor, and his brother Dan wrote its Emmy-winning episode.
- Barbra StreisandBarbra Streisand once filed a lawsuit that sent a crowd of strangers to look at a single photograph. In 2003 she claimed that a website documenting coastal erosion had invaded her privacy. Among its more than 12,000 images, one happened to…
- Charlie KaufmanEvery company rejected Charlie Kaufman's script for Being John Malkovich. Spike Jonze later agreed to direct it.
- Mira NairMira Nair finished cutting Salaam Bombay! only three days before the film had its world premiere. The date was the 19th of May 1988, and the setting was the closing gala of the Cannes Film Festival. When the screening ended, the audience…
- 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…
- David ByrneDavid Byrne was turned away from his middle school choir, which judged him "off-key and too withdrawn". That boy grew up to be an American musician, writer, visual artist and filmmaker. Over his career he has received an Academy Award, a…
- Anthony PerkinsAnthony Perkins was born on the 4th of April 1932 in Manhattan and died on the 12th of September 1992. When Fear Strikes Out reached theaters in 1957, The Hollywood Reporter wrote of his performance: "Every recent young star has been…
- Joss WhedonJoss Whedon earned more from a web musical than from directing The Avengers.
- Chris WeitzChris Weitz sent a studio an unrequested 40-page plan to win the job of directing The Golden Compass. He got it in 2003.
- James MangoldJames Mangold studied acting because his CalArts teacher urged him to. It gave him a feel for performance.
- Jon FavreauJon Favreau named his company after the golem of Jewish folklore. It can protect or destroy, like technology.
- Chris TerrioChris Terrio spent months checking whether Gatorade existed in December 1979. He needed it for one joke in Argo.
- Michael Lindsay-HoggAt 16, Michael Lindsay-Hogg heard his mother deny in great detail that Orson Welles was his father.