Sam Mendes Biography

Samuel Alexander "Sam" Mendes, CBE (born 1 August 1965) is an English stage and film director. He is best known for directing American Beauty (1999), which earned him the Academy and Golden Globe Award for Best Director, the crime film Road to Perdition (2002), and the James Bond movie Skyfall (2012). He also is known for dark re-inventions of the stage musicals Cabaret (1994), Oliver! (1994), Company (1996), and Gypsy (2003). He directed an original stage musical for the first time with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2013).

In 2000, Mendes was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for "services to drama" and, in 2005, received a lifetime achievement award from the Directors Guild of Great Britain.

Early years

Mendes was born in Reading, Berkshire, the only child of Valerie Helene (née Barnett), an author of children's books, and Jameson Peter Mendes, a university professor. Sam's father, who is from Trinidad, is of Portuguese and Italian descent, and Sam's mother is an English Jew. His grandfather is the Trinidadian writer Alfred Hubert Mendes.

Mendes' parents divorced when he was a child. He grew up in Oxfordshire and attended Magdalen College School and Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he graduated with a first in English. While at Cambridge, he was a member of the Marlowe Society and directed several plays, including a production of Cyrano de Bergerac with Tom Hollander among the cast members. He was also a "brilliant" schoolboy cricketer, according to Wisden and played for Magdalen College School in 1983 and 1984. He also played cricket for Cambridge University.

Aged 24, Mendes directed a production of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard in the West End that starred Judi Dench. Soon he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where his productions, many of them featuring Simon Russell Beale, included Troilus and Cressida, Richard III and The Tempest.

He has also worked at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 1988 as assistant director on a number of productions, including Major Barbara, and directing in "The Tent", the second venue. He later directed at the Royal National Theatre, helming Edward Bond's The Sea, Jim Cartwright's The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party, and Othello with Simon Russell Beale as Iago.

Career

Stage

In 1990 Mendes was appointed artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse, a studio space in London's Covent Garden which he helped transform into one of the city's more notable theatre venues. He spent his first two years overseeing the redesign of the theatre, and his opening production was Stephen Sondheim's Assassins in 1992. Several successful productions followed.

In 1993, Mendes staged an acclaimed revival of John Kander and Fred Ebb's Cabaret starring Jane Horrocks as Sally Bowles, Alan Cumming as Emcee, Adam Godley as Cliff Bradshaw and Sara Kestelman as Frau Schneider. The production was approached with a fresh concept, differing greatly from both the original 1966 production directed by Harold Prince and the famed film version, directed by Bob Fosse. This production opened at the Donmar and received four Olivier Award nominations including Best Musical Revival, before transferring promptly to Broadway where it played for several years at the Kit Kat Club (i.e. the Stephen Sondheim Theater). The Broadway cast included Cumming once again as Emcee, with Natasha Richardson as Sally, Mary Louise Wilson as Frau Schneider and John Benjamin Hickey as Cliff. Cumming and Richardson won Tony Awards for their performances.

1994 saw Mendes stage a new production of Lionel Bart's Oliver!, produced by Cameron Mackintosh. Mendes, a longtime fan of the work, worked in close collaboration with Bart and other production team members, William David Brohn, Martin Koch and Anthony Ward, to create a fresh staging of the well-known classic. Bart added new musical material and Mendes updated the book slightly, while the orchestrations were radically rewritten to suit the show's cinematic feel. The cast included Jonathan Pryce (after much persuasion) as Fagin, Sally Dexter as Nancy, and Miles Anderson as Bill Sikes. Mendes, Pryce and Dexter received Olivier Award nominations for their work on Oliver!.

He has also directed productions of Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, Stephen Sondheim's Company (which had the first ever African American "Bobby"), Alan Bennett's Habeas Corpus and his farewell duo of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night, which transferred to the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

In 2003, Mendes directed a revival of the musical Gypsy. Originally, he planned to stage this production in London's West End with an eventual Broadway transfer, but when negotiations fell through, he brought it to New York. The cast included Bernadette Peters as Rose, Tammy Blanchard as Louise and John Dossett as Herbie. Mendes is scheduled to direct a new stage adaptation of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which opened at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in June 2013.

Film

In 1999, Mendes made his movie directorial debut with American Beauty, starring Kevin Spacey. The film grossed $356.3 million worldwide. The film won the Golden Globe Award, the BAFTA Award and the Academy Award for Best Picture. Mendes won the Golden Globe Award, Directors Guild of America Award, and the Academy Award for Best Director, becoming the sixth director to earn the Academy Award for his feature film debut.

Mendes's second film, in 2002, was Road to Perdition, which grossed US$181 million. The aggregate review score on Rotten Tomatoes was 82%; critics praised Paul Newman for his performance. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor, and won one for Best Cinematography.

In 2003, Mendes established Neal Street Productions, a film, television and theatre production company he would use to finance much of his later work.

In 2005, Mendes directed the war film Jarhead in association with his production company Neal Street Productions. The film received mixed reviews, receiving a Rotten Tomatoes aggregate of 61%, and a gross revenue of US$96.9 million worldwide. The film focused on the boredom and other psychological challenges of wartime.

In 2008, Mendes directed Revolutionary Road, starring his then-wife, Kate Winslet, along with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kathy Bates. In a January 2009 interview, Mendes commented, about directing his wife for the first time, "I would open my eyes in the morning and there Kate would be, going, 'Great! You're awake! Now let's talk about the second scene.'" Mendes' comedy-drama Away We Go opened the 2009 Edinburgh International Film Festival. The film follows a couple (John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph) searching North America for the perfect community in which to settle down and start a family. The film was well received by critics but performed poorly at the box office.

In 2010, he co-produced a critically acclaimed documentary film Out of the Ashes that deals with cricket in Afghanistan.

In 2012 Neal Street Productions produced the first series of the BBC One drama series, Call the Midwife, following it with a second season which began transmission in early 2013.

James Bond

On 5 January 2010, news broke that Mendes was employed to direct the 23rd Eon Productions installment of the James Bond franchise. The film, Skyfall, was subsequently released on 26 October 2012, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Bond films. Mendes had been employed as a consultant on the film when it was in pre-production, and had remained attached to the project during the financial troubles of MGM.

The film was a major critical and commercial success, becoming the 14th film to gross over $1 billion worldwide.

Following the success of Skyfall, Mendes was asked if he was returning to direct the next Bond film. He responded, "I felt I put everything I possibly could into this film and it was the Bond film I wanted to make. And if I felt I could do the same again, then absolutely I would consider doing another one. But it is a big task and I wouldn't do it unless I knew I could."

It was reported that one reason Mendes was reluctant to commit was that one proposal involved making two films back-to-back, based on an idea by Skyfall writer John Logan, which would have resulted in Mendes and other creative personnel being tied up with filming for around four years. It was reported in February 2013 that this idea had since been shelved and that the next two films would be stand-alone. The same report claimed that Mendes was "75% on board, but was waiting to see the finished script before committing."

However, Mendes said in an interview with Empire Magazine in March 2013 that "It has been a very difficult decision not to accept Michael and Barbara's very generous offer to direct the next Bond movie." He cited, amongst other reasons, his commitments to the stage version of Charlie & the Chocolate Factory and King Lear.

However, on 29 May 2013, it was reported that Mendes was back in negotiations with producers Wilson and Broccoli to direct the next Bond film, going back on comments that he had previously made on 5 March 2013 announcing that he would not be directing the 24th Bond film in order to focus efforts on his career in theatre. Wilson and Broccoli were willing to postpone production of the film to ensure Mendes' participation.

On 11 July 2013 it was announced that Mendes will direct the 24th James Bond film, due for release in 2015. This makes him the first filmmaker since John Glen to direct two Bond films in a row.

Personal life

Mendes married British actress Kate Winslet in May 2003 on what they characterised as a whim while on holiday in Anguilla. They had met in 2001 when Mendes approached Winslet about appearing in a play at the Donmar Warehouse Theatre, where he was then artistic director. Their son Joe Alfie was born on 22 December 2003. Mendes also had a stepdaughter, Mia, from Winslet's first marriage to filmmaker Jim Threapleton. The couple's representative announced on 15 March 2010 that "that they separated earlier this year." Winslet said in 2011 that "the first stage of my divorce with Sam came through" on the same day she was filming a divorce scene for her HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce.

In November 2011, a spokesman for Mendes confirmed that he and actress Rebecca Hall had been dating "for some time".

Work

Stage productions

• 1990: Began directing for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
• 1992: became artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse theatre
• 1992: directed Assassins at the Donmar
• 1994: directed revival of Oliver! (with score specially revised and augmented by original composer and lyricist Lionel Bart) at the London Palladium; the show ran for four years, becoming on 8 July 1997 the longest-running show at the venue.
• 1994: directed revival of Cabaret
• 1995: directed revival of Company
• 1997: directed The Fix in the West End
• 1997: directed The Front Page starring Griff Rhys Jones and Alun Armstrong.
• 1998: alongside Rob Marshall, directed Broadway revival of Cabaret, closely based on his previous production
• 1998: directed David Hare's The Blue Room, starring Nicole Kidman (and Iain Glen).
• 1999: directed Wise Guys in New York
• 2002: directed Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night.
• 2003: directed a Broadway revival of Gypsy, starring Bernadette Peters.
• 2003: started film and theatre production company, Neal Street Productions, with Pippa Harris and Caro Newling.
• 2006: directed The Vertical Hour on Broadway, with Julianne Moore and Bill Nighy
• 2009: directed The Winter's Tale and The Cherry Orchard for BAM and the Old Vic, with Simon Russell Beale, Sinéad Cusack, Rebecca Hall and Ethan Hawke.
• 2010: directed As You Like It and The Tempest for BAM and the Old Vic, starring Stephen Dillane, Juliet Rylance, Christian Camargo, and Michelle Beck.
• 2011: directed Richard III, starring Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic (June " September 2011)
• 2012: directed Richard III, starring Kevin Spacey at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) (January - March 2012)
• 2013: directed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

Feature films

Year	Film	Credited as			Oscar nominations	Oscar wins	BAFTA nominations	BAFTA wins	Golden Globe nominations	Golden Globe wins
		Director	Producer	Executive Producer
1999	American Beauty	Yes			8	5	14	6	6	3
2002	Road to Perdition	Yes	Yes		6	1	3	2	1
2005	Jarhead	Yes
2006	Starter for 10			Yes
2007	Stuart: A Life Backwards		Yes
	Things We Lost in the Fire		Yes
	The Kite Runner		Yes		1				2
2008	Revolutionary Road	Yes	Yes		3		4		4	1
2009	Away We Go	Yes
2012	Call the Midwife		Yes
	Richard II		Yes
	Henry IV, Part I		Yes
	Henry IV, Part II		Yes
	Henry V		Yes
	Skyfall	Yes			5	2	8	2	1	1
Total	15	6	10	1	22	8	29	10	12	5

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Film or stage play	Result
1989	Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Newcomer	The Cherry Orchard
1995	Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Director	The Glass Menagerie
	Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director
1996	Laurence Olivier Award for Director	Company
1998	Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical	Cabaret
1999	Academy Award for Best Director	American Beauty
	Golden Globe Award for Best Director
	Directors Guild of America Award for Best Director
2002	Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Director	Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night
2003	Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director
	Society of London Theatre Special Award	N/A
2008	Golden Globe Award for Best Director " Motion Picture	Revolutionary Road