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
Movies are - all I've found is that they're just tougher and tougher to make.
Sitting in an automobile was where I first remember understanding how drama works ... Hidden in the back seat of a sedan, I quickly realized how deep the chasm or intense the claustrophobia could be inside your average family car.
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.
The future is now. It's time to grow up and be strong. Tomorrow may well be too late.
It's funny how that comes up, because sometimes I'll write something and I'll think, I don't know if that's a film or a play, and then other things I feel very strongly about them just being plays - they feel very theatrical to me.
But for me, it feels like a natural extension of what I've been doing: exploring relationships. Here you have two relationships and we can explore how difficult it is for people to be together.
In a relationship you have to open yourself up.
We live in a disposable society. It's easier to throw things out than to fix them. We even give it a name - we call it recycling.
I have a healthy view of what one can do with art.
Everyone has a little bit of Howard and Chad in them. I think there's Christine in all men as well.
First I would probably place men at the bottom of the food chain. On a grander scale, I would say they're reacting to change. Feminism has got to be part of that.
I'm more than open to hope, but I think men and women have a difficult time dealing with each other and often take the low road.
My business is can I create a world that's possible and could happen? I think that's the only thing that I have to do, and I think that I have done that each time.
With In the Company of Men, the misogynist label stuck early and firmly. In the end, it probably did hurt the film a bit, because getting women into the theaters was difficult.