Paul Greengrass

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Birthday:

13 August 1955, Cheam, Surrey, England, UK

Height:

183 cm

Paul Greengrass started his filmmaking career with a super 8 camera he found in his art room in secondary school. Those short movies were animation horror films he made using old dolls, artist dummies, and the general art room clutter.After studying in Cambridge University he got into Granada Television School and spent the first ten years of his career roving global hot spots for the hard-hitting documentary series, World in Action. By this time he became very interested in the Northern Ireland conflict.In 1989, he directed his first fiction movie, "Resurrected", that won an award in Berlin. He continued his career as a fiction filmmaker with a serial of TV movies dealing with social and political issues: Open Fire (a police scandal about a policeman accused of murder), The One that got away (about a military operation during the first Gulf War).His documentary style became more dynamic and intense with each movie. In 2002, Bloody Sunday achieved international acclamation and won the first prize in the Berlin Festival. After that he has continued his career in the United States with "The Bourne Supremacy" starring Matt Damon. Show less «

[on his time with British current-affairs TV show 'World in Action'] A festival of puerile self-importance, intense paranoia, fiddled expens...Show more »

[on his time with British current-affairs TV show 'World in Action'] A festival of puerile self-importance, intense paranoia, fiddled expenses and brilliant creativity. Show less «

By the time I'd done Bloody Sunday (2002) I felt I reached the end of a chapter. I could feel it. I wanted to try something new, something d...Show more »

By the time I'd done Bloody Sunday (2002) I felt I reached the end of a chapter. I could feel it. I wanted to try something new, something different. Then, to my amazement, "Bloody Sunday" won lots of theatrical prizes, the audience award at Sundance, and then, to my even greater amazement, I had the opportunity to make a film in Hollywood. I mean, you wouldn't think, looking at my films, oh, there's a guy who's going to make films in Hollywood. Show less «

[on first turning down a 4th Bourne movie] I just felt that I'd done it. There's nothing unnatural about that. To make a film is eighteen mo...Show more »

[on first turning down a 4th Bourne movie] I just felt that I'd done it. There's nothing unnatural about that. To make a film is eighteen months of your life. It's seven days a week. It's twenty hours a day. There were just too many other things that I was interested in. I felt that I had a wonderful, wonderful time. I loved it and I want it to continue and I hope that it does. Show less «

[how he developed his distinctive hand-held camera style] To be perfectly honest, i couldn't afford tripods.

[on Captain Phillips (2013)] Tom Hanks has built his career playing ordinary men. This performance is a study of endurance and heroism, but ...Show more »

[on Captain Phillips (2013)] Tom Hanks has built his career playing ordinary men. This performance is a study of endurance and heroism, but he crafts it from pieces of doubt, uncertainty and fear. It's not built from hubris. Show less «

[on Alan Clarke's films]...unquestionably the finest body of work created by a British director.