Roland Emmerich

If you know more information about Roland Emmerich help us to improve this page

Birthday:

10 November 1955, Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Height:

180 cm

Roland Emmerich is a German film director and producer of blockbuster films like The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Godzilla (1998), Independence Day (1996) and The Patriot (2000). Before fame, he originally wanted to be a production designer, but decided to be a director, after watching the original Star Wars (1977). Emmerich began his career in his native Germany. In his youth, he pursued painting and sculpting. While enrolled in the director's program at film school in Munich, his student film Das Arche Noah Prinzip (1984) went on to open the 1984 Berlin Film Festival. The feature became a huge success and was sold to more than 20 countries. In an amazing trivia, he directed his first feature, Das Arche Noah Prinzip (1984), in 1984. He is openly gay and a campaigner for the LGBT community.A director/writer/producer with a flair for special effects-driven action, German Roland Emmerich made himself at home in blockbuster-hungry 1990s Hollywood. Born and educated in West Germany, Emmerich studied production design as well as direction at the Munich Film and Television School. After his student film, The Noah's Ark Principle, debuted at the 1984 Berlin Film Festival, Emmerich formed his production company Centropolis and directed supernatural fantasies Making Contact (1986) and Ghost Chase (1987), and the straight-to-video action film Moon 44 (1990). On the latter, he met actor Dean Devlin who subsequently switched jobs to become Emmerich's writing and producing partner once Emmerich set up shop in Hollywood.After making his solo Hollywood debut directing Jean-Claude Van Damme in the cyborg action fest Universal Soldier (1992), Emmerich and Devlin revealed a talent for conjuring A-level action spectacles out of B-movie scenarios with their first film together, Stargate (1994). A space odyssey mixing ancient Egyptiana and high-tech wizardry, Stargate became an unexpected hit. Emmerich hit his blockbuster stride with his next film, Independence Day (1996). With its eye-popping destruction of major cities and climactic annihilation of a spacecraft via portable computer, Independence Day blew away its summer movie competition on the strength of its visual flash. Geared to repeat with the endlessly- and creatively-hyped version of Godzilla (1998), Emmerich instead faced the conundrum of directing a $100 million grossing film that did not live up to box office expectations. Emmerich and Devlin next turned their epic visions to the decidedly lower-tech (but still CGI-enhanced) action of the American Revolution in the Mel Gibson summer vehicle The Patriot (2000). Show less «

I'm making movies for the masses.

I came to film school in 1977 when directors like Fassbinder and Wenders were everybody's heroes. But it was also the time that Star Wars an...Show more »

I came to film school in 1977 when directors like Fassbinder and Wenders were everybody's heroes. But it was also the time that Star Wars and Close Encounters came out, and these were the seminal movies for me. Everybody is always so careful about these things. I mean, I'm good friends with Wim Wenders, but it doesn't mean I have to like his movies. Some of them, I like. Most of them, I find boring. And I would tell him that to his face. Show less «

When you're not loved by the critics, it's very hard for anyone to say anything good about your movie. For me, it's more important that the ...Show more »

When you're not loved by the critics, it's very hard for anyone to say anything good about your movie. For me, it's more important that the audience enjoys it and embraces it, anyway. You get something that does well, but is criticized. So you say, 'OK, they just didn't get it. There's 1% or 2% who didn't like it. But there's 98% who did. Show less «

... all my movies are created because I'm fascinated by a subject. Sometimes I think there's just a certain obsession about it all - when yo...Show more »

... all my movies are created because I'm fascinated by a subject. Sometimes I think there's just a certain obsession about it all - when you want to do something just for the sake of it. A lot of directors are like that. I'm just very fortunate that most of my movies get made. Show less «