Neil LaBute
Neil LaBute
Neil N. LaBute is an American film director, screenwriter, playwright and actor. He is most likely known for his first film, based on a play he wrote, In the Company of Men, which won awards from the Sundance Film Festival, the Independent Spirit Awards and the New York Film Critics Circle. He has also written and directed the films Possession, The Shape of Things, The Wicker Man, Some Velvet Morning, Dirty Weekend, and directed the films Nurse Betty, Lakeview Terrace,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth19 March 1963
CountryUnited States of America
People have perhaps gotten to the point where for the most part movies are a just bit of escape.
I was always looking for the most dramatic emphasis.
I was very careful to cast guys who were very good-looking and very fit and who had a certain sense of privilege about them, because with that sense of privilege comes contempt.
Unrequited love is always a great thing.
Relationships in general make people a bit nervous. It's about trust. Do I trust you enough to go there?
My best male friend is my best friend until he crosses me. We're all protective of the self.
I make movies I want to see.
Everybody has the ability to be manipulative, to be hateful and deceitful.
People think my work is therapeutic. I don't see it that way. It's not like I'm saving money from a weekly therapy visit by writing down my life.
I see bits and pieces of me in all the characters in my films.
But even with a character like Cary who is relatively outlandish, at the end of the movie he's in a place where I wouldn't have expected him to be - taking on the responsibility of a woman who is pregnant and who used to be his best friend's wife.
If we put the camera on ourselves, our friends and neighbors, we'll come up with some scary stuff.
I think the more the actor lets you know what he thinks of the character, the less the audience cares - like a comedian who laughs at his own jokes.
You start as an audience member and create a world you're interested in, and then you move into the telling of those stories, bringing what has interested you as an audience member.