Eli Roth
Eli Roth
Eli Raphael Rothis an American film director, producer, writer and actor. He is known for directing the horror film Hostel and its sequel, Hostel: Part II. He is also known for his role as Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz in Quentin Tarantino's war film Inglourious Basterds for which he won both a SAG Awardand a BFCA Critic's Choice Award. Journalists have included him in a group of filmmakers dubbed the Splat Pack for their explicitly violent and bloody horror films...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth18 April 1972
CityNewton, MA
CountryUnited States of America
I love movies that have that resonating scare, that really get under your skin and make you think.
I think in life we get very caught up in the minutia and, unfortunately, it generally takes some sort of tragedy in your life to put things in perspective.
The scariest people are usually the sweetest.
People want to be disturbed when they go see a horror movie.
Believe it or not, but I was a camp councilor for three years. I love kids.
In the box-office slump of the last year, these movies are the only movies that audiences are responding to. Both Saw II and 'Hostel' were made for US$4 million, and they're beating movies that cost US$200 million dollars.
I have the infinite galaxy from '2001' as my screensaver - so if I space out while I'm writing and it goes to screensaver, I can just stare off into the stars.
Chile could work as a double for L.A.; it's very production-friendly and there's terrific talent down there.
I like to take risks and do weird things and stuff that's not normal compared to other Hollywood movies. Not stuff that's totally avant garde and daring, but doing stuff that's in other languages and not using stars and using real people - things that they generally don't do in mainstream films.
People don't enjoy violence in real life, but they love it in their movies. And I think a lot of studio horror movies don't want to offend anybody. If there's anything that's too far out there, they test it and if it offends people, they take it out. But Open Water , Wolf Creek , The Devil's Rejects - these are movies made outside of the studio system, that don't have a happy ending. (The studios and critics) forget that that's what people are paying for - to be terrified and disturbed.
Right now we're at war, and then you have Hurricane Katrina, where there are people on roofs screaming for help. I have this feeling that civilization could collapse, and that if you go overseas, you could get killed, that you could be in the middle of nowhere, and that someone could kill you and no one would find you. This film is also about the dark side of human nature. Everyone's life has a price. I want the audience to feel guilty. I want them to feel sick to their stomach, but by the end they're screaming for blood. Everyone has this evil within them.
I want to make movies that are interesting and different, and that make people think. I mean, I want to make a movie that they can have a great time, that they can watch over and over and over and that 30 years from now that people will still be watching.
There's a crazy, false notion that audiences are not patient or will not watch a story, that you have to put in a scare every ten minutes. But I always thought that was insane.
As a director, you have to know what actors are doing. You're the one telling them what to do. The actors' job is to come prepared to the set, but sometimes, if they're beginning actors or people who are non-actors, you have to teach them how to act.