Biography for
Neil LaBute

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Acclaimed and highly discussed filmmaker Neil LaBute has made himself a force to be reckoned with and a name to watch. With his true-to-life cynical and self-absorbed characters and all-too-true social themes, he has firmly established himself as an unforgiving judge of the ugliest side of human nature.

LaBute was originally a playwright. He attended Brigham Young University and took theater as his major. Many say that Pulitzer-Prize winner David Mamet was a strong influence on him. He chose to attack subjects that many don't really want to talk about and showed the way that people really talk amongst themselves. His piece entitled "Filthy Talk for Troubled Times" featured two guys just sitting around and making small talk and ridiculing homosexuals and their ways, in a manner not unlike the conversations in his In the Company of Men (1997). The play was not, unsurprisingly, a hit with the critics.

After LaBute graduated from the University of Kansas and New York University, he got a scholarship to London's Royal Court Theatre in the US in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City. Then he got into cinema. He made his films like his plays: just characters talking and revealing how evil, scared, ignorant, wounded, delusional, disillusioned and cynical they are.

LaBute made his first major mark with the low-budget (and frighteningly realistic) cautionary fable In the Company of Men (1997), about two male co-workers fed up with what they believe is the way women have taken over American society and how it is no longer a man's world. They set out to find a vulnerable woman - one looking for male attention - and wine her, dine her, then cruelly dump her, just to gain some "dignity" for their gender. Shot for $25,000 in less than two weeks, the film won the Sundance Filmmaker's trophy, awards for LaBute's screenplay and Aaron Eckhart's performance as a heartless creep with ambition and cockiness to spare.

His sophomore cinema effort, Your Friends & Neighbors (1998), was considerably less well-received (a casualty of what is often referred to as "the sophomore jinx"). The film was about a group of people connected by their relationships; when unhappy in them, they begin to cheat on one another, lovers, even friends. The movie got some strong reviews, but other reviewers felt LaBute was pretty much repeating himself, the prevailing attitude seeming to be that this time he had made an entire movie with nothing but villains, so why should anyone care about or want these people to ever find happiness?

Nurse Betty (2000) was LaBute's next directorial effort, from a script he didn't write himself. It was was a radical departure from LaBute's other work, about a sweet-natured waitress obsessed with a particular soap opera and especially the show's star, George McCord (Greg Kinnear). The film received the Cannes Film Festival's Best Screenplay trophy for its authors and a Golden Palm for LaBute's effort. Renée Zellweger was honored with a Golden Globe Award. LaBute had finally made a mainstream film, and a damn good one, but he didn't spend ALL his time basking - he had put out several other things that year, such as a TV movie based on his "Bash" plays and another original work entitled Tumble (2000), none of which got wide recognition. In 2002 LaBute got himself noticed again with another less-caustic movie - a costume period piece called Possession (2002), based on the best-selling novel, which many believed to be about his love for early English culture. It starred LaBute stalwart Eckhart and Gwyneth Paltrow, who specializes in having the most authentic sounding British accent around. It wasn't a huge box-office success, but it did have many fervent admirers.

In 2003 LaBute brought to the screen another adaptation of his own work, a play he wrote and directed and had performed in England. He brought his original cast (Paul Rudd, Rachel Weisz, Gretchen Mol and Fred Weller) back to appear in this one. It was entitled The Shape of Things (2003), about how a seductive art student named Evelyn takes Paul, a nerdy, insecure, out-of-shape guy, and begins molding him to look more and more desirable, much to the confusion of his friends. He enjoys being desirable, but is unaware of where all this remodeling will lead as Evelyn gets more and more possessive and controlling. With pieces like "In the Company of Men" and Your Friends & Neighbors (1998), LaBute has proven that he has his hand on the pulse of everyday people - not heroes and villains, just people who sound and behave often horribly, aNd you cringe all the more because you know and identify with them. With "Nurse Betty" and "Possession", however, LaBute has shown that he has more than just one really incredibly note. He's no one-hit wonder. Here is a man whose entire body of work should be watched and studied by all.

Trade Mark

Frequently casts Aaron Eckhart.

His films usually consist of a cruel and vicious battle of the sexes.

Trivia

Attended Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and graduated with degrees in Theater and Film.

He attended the University of Kansas and received his Masters degree in Theater and Film.

He was nominated for the 2001 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Play for "The Shape of Things", performed at the Almeida Theatre.

Father was a truck driver.

He became friends with Aaron Eckhart at Brigham Young University. They have worked together at least five times: In the Company of Men (1997), Your Friends & Neighbors (1998), Nurse Betty (2000), Tumble (2000) and Possession (2002).

His script for In the Company of Men (1997), began with the line "Let's hurt somebody" and developed from there.

Personal Quotes

I start writing about people. If they stay in the house, I say, "This is shaping up to be a play." If they go out to the car, to the grocery store, then I say, "I think it's going to be a film."

I take no pleasure in it, but I'm not afraid of it. Entertainment should be good, not nice and carefree.

But that's the beauty and the damning thing in theatre, is that what you see will never be seen by anybody else on another night. And when it closes, it's gone. On film you can go back and watch it over and over, but it doesn't change.

...I think everybody has a place in an art gallery, they just should keep their mouths shut. They're free to walk around as long as they pay the price, I just don't think they should be dictating policy. I'm big on what the argument the film proposes about subjectivity about art itself. This [picks up glass of water] can be art because you made it, or it can be a glass of water to me and I can think you're a loon for calling it art, and we could both be right.

Sometimes I think it's hard for an audience to know when to laugh. It's such an immediate and spontaneous response, and sometimes we're dictated by who we're with and the general public, and if everybody else is not laughing, it can sometimes quell the feeling inside you and you put a damper on it.

I don't have a rote way that I go about things. I'm not very good at working consistently... The actual planning out of something tends to go on in my head rather than me doing lines between things happening. I'm not good with a trail of Post-its to tell me what scene I need next. I like to finish a scene and then figure out what happens next and find my way to it. If it's not coming, then I walk away from it. I don't find great value in "I must write five pages everyday" because those five pages usually turn into placemats. There's nothing worse than staring at a blank screen and trying to be funny or profound or any of those things. It comes when it does.

And I also don't think that my work will change your life. I think that at its best, it will raise new questions, give you an alternative view of something and perhaps over time that might lead you to greater understanding about something. But in terms of changing someone's opinion, that's a tall order and I don't see how, in an hour and a half or two hours, that's likely to happen.

I don't shy away from subjects that come to me - and once I decide to do a subject, I don't pull back - but I'm not consciously stirring the pot or ripping stories out of the headlines to create tension and thus shine the light on me.

My plays are polarizing. People love them or loathe them.

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